Luke 6:36-38 Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful. “Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.”
John Stott write in his book “The Contemporary Christian” tells this story, ‘Not long before she died in 1988, in a moment of surprising candor in television, Marghanita Laski, one of our best-known secular humanists and novelists, said, “What I envy most about you Christians is your forgiveness; I have nobody to forgive me.”
Jesus, the revelation of God to man… tells us in Luke 6 that we have been forgiven of so much. If you are reading this right now, know that you are forgiven. Your sins… the big ones and the ones you consider to be little have been forgiven and as only our God can do have been FORGOTTEN.
Karl Menninger, the famed psychiatrist, once said that if he could convince the patients in psychiatric hospitals that their sins were forgiven, 75 percent of them could walk out the next day! Do you know that you’re sins are forgiven? Have you received that forgiveness?
One night in a dream, Martin Luther found himself being attacked by Satan. The devil unrolled a long scroll containing a list of Luther’s sins and held it before him. On reaching the end of the scroll Luther asked the devil, “Is that all?” “No,” came the reply, and a second scroll was thrust in front of him. Then, after a second came a third. But now the devil had no more. “You’ve forgotten something,” Luther exclaimed triumphantly. “Quickly write on each of them, ‘The blood of Jesus Christ God’s son cleanses us from all sins.”
Brother, sister… know today that you have been forgiven and “the blood of Jesus has forgiven you of all sins.” Now, you have a response… a real responsibility. Because, you have been forgiven of soooooo much, You need to BE BIG WHEN IT COMES TO GRACE AND FORGIVENESS AND SHOWING MERCY TO OTHERS.
By His Spirit,
Pastor Bill