Grace Bible Church
Pastor-Teacher
Robert R. McLaughlin
Wednesday
November 29, 2017
Pastor Rick Kabrick
The fact is that all of us live our lives carrying our own baggage. That baggage contains some of our most prized possessions.
However, ultimately if we are new creatures and we are as believers, then we should be living in the CWL and thus we will be defined by our Lord and the newness of life more than the bad circumstances that we have gone through.
Remember there is some good baggage in there, but we need to get rid of the bad.
Some try to bury it. But then it comes alive again.
These are the defense mechanisms that we have seen before. Problem is none of these mechanisms are effective, and they bounce back to us.
We must let go, that is the only way to heal ourselves, and until we do that we cannot help or heal others.
We are forgetting that our Lord…who did not deserve to go to the Cross, still went to the Cross for us.
“Father forgive them for they do not know what they do!”
Some people have trouble forgiving others and many have trouble forgiving themselves.
We will never experience the full joy of God’s forgiveness until we learn to forgive others as He has commanded us to do.
We cannot use the faults of others to build ourselves up. Sin is our own personal responsibility.
When God wanted to prepare a Gospel record that was especially designed to reach the Jewish people, He chose a publican to do it, namely Mattityahu or Matthew.
We often want to hurt those who have hurt us, holding a grudge seems like the perfect way to really make someone pay.
When we don’t think we have any value, we cannot accept the fact that we have been forgiven and therefore it is difficult to forgive.
Here is the deal: Stop lusting for everything we want and start lusting for everything God wants for us.
Holding a grudge, and having bitter feelings toward someone will cheat you out of a blessing.
So forgiveness has those two sides, understanding that we are forgiven, and then how we forgive others.