Posts Tagged ‘Forgiveness’

Hey RiverStone and Friends,

I have something I need to apologize for this week.  After reviewing and praying “post-sermon” yesterday, I realized I might have offended some people and been a little too cheeky with my comment, “we are all Pea-Brains.”

What I was intending to communicate through that comment (not in my message notes by the way) is that compared to the Sovereign Lord, we are nothing.  We are powerless, our ingenuity and strategies are weak, and our attempts to climb the mountain to get to God to make things right between ourselves and a Holy God are futile at best.

This particular comment that I want to “take-back” was during the portion of the message where I was talking about us being spiritually bankrupt in and of ourselves – being poor in spirit from Matthew 5:3.

So…if I can rephrase with deep humility, I’d like to say that we are incapable of paying the debt we owe to God because of our sin. We can’t do it.  That’s why Jesus came, to pay the debt for us.  And by our faith in Christ as our substitutionary atonement we receive grace, forgiveness, a new heart, and become righteous.

Blessings RS!

PC

OK, so everyone’s been expressing and invoking their opinions on the Anthony Weiner issue that’s taken the nation by storm over the last couple of weeks.  I have stayed out of the debate, but today I want to jump in and give my opinion based on an interview I saw today.

I heard an interview today with Tim Kaine, the former Governor and former Chairman of the Democratic National Convention from 2009-2011. Kaine makes this statement to the media as he was interviewed about Weiner:

“Lying is unforgivable; lying publicly about something like this is unforgivable.”

I think I understand what Kaine is trying to say. I think he’s trying to say that Weiner’s activity and actions can’t be tolerated and there must be repurcussions.  But when it comes to the issue of forgiveness, I want to always think Biblically about this.

Jesus says to his followers in Matthew 6:14, “For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”

Don’t miss what Jesus is saying to those who follow him.  He is saying that being a Christ-follower means extending forgiveness.  How can we do that when wronged?  How can we forgive politicians when they wrong the public, or lie to the public?  We forgive simply because we have been forgiven.  The power to forgive is included in the truth that all of us are sinners, forgiven by the blood of Jesus Christ if we profess faith in Christ.

So before we go firing off the “unforgivable” lingo, let’s look in the mirror and think Biblically about things, and forgive Weiner because Christ has forgiven us.

Hey RiverStone and Friends,

It’s good to be back from B’ham after a great vacation with family and friends, ringing in the new year.  We drove off Christmas Day around lunch time (by the way, no restaurants are open on Christmas Day, just FYI), and pulled in to B’ham around 9:15 p.m.

We had an eventful time to say the least with our trip, beginning with a real life A Christmas Story dinner at the Golden Palace Chinese Buffet in Dothan, Alabama. It was so much like the movie it was unreal.  After Dothan, we continued North towards B’ham, and encountered what was to us like a Southern Blizzard!  Around the Brundidge, AL area we had such heavy snow flakes falling that we could hardly see.  (This was amazing to Emma because up until this point she had never seen snow before).  We made it threw the blizzard to reach our destination of my parents house in Trussville, AL – a suburb of B’ham – and the first thing we noticed upon getting out of the crammed Sedan was that the entire ground was covered in the white stuff!  Immediately, Emma, my dad and I engaged in a snow ball fight and the Christmas vacation was on!

As I reflected over the White Christmas we had in ‘Bama, a verse continued to be on my heart looking over the blanket that covered the ground:

Isaiah 1:18 says “Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord:  though your sins are scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.”

This verse was on my heart the entire trip – I would look out of the windows and just see a glimmering white reflection of the sun.  Think about this with me…Isaiah is saying sin is in our lives and it looks like scarlet, and it is as crimson…Deep red…deeply staining our lives…Yet with God, those sins are covered over completely and perfectly in the blood of Jesus.  He provides for us the forgiveness of sin, and the cover we desperately need so that we aren’t stained and doomed in our sin.  The snow in ‘Bama represented for me Jesus’ love and perfection, the cross, and the ramifications of the cross – purity and righteousness in God’s sight through faith in His Son, Jesus!  Wow!

I hope this encouraged you today, and continues to stir you towards digging deeper into Jesus in 2011!

CD