Seventeen years ago my wife and I were about to wave goodbye to our seventeen year old daughter as she prepared to enter her first year of college. The day was filled with love, trepidation, excitement and emotion for us all. Our daughter asked if she could take our picture to remember the moment. When she sent us a copy of the photo I immediately sensed this was one to keep in a place where it could be seen it every day.

The picture is securely wedged into the woodwork inside the door of an old pine armoire in our room. We had been married for over twenty years at that time; we had moved across the country and were raising seven children. This was a time to remember.

The note card with Colossians 3:13 hand written upon it was something I had used while teaching a high school age Sunday School Class.  The scripture was a plain spoken spiritual truth to live by and seemed to go perfectly with the photo.

This summer we will celebrate our thirty-eighth anniversary.

 Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.

I am grateful that my wife and I have learned to submit ourselves, our marriage and our family to the word of God and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. God’s forgiveness has always been a shelter for us from the storms of life.

We have moved four times since that photo and scripture were wedged into that armoire, neither of them has budged one speck through all that  hauling and relocation.

This is a good and workable formula. Find yourself a moment of joy to hold onto. Anchor yourself with God’s word. Don’t move one speck.

God is faithful. Do what He says. Trust Him.

There is simply no avoiding the dangers of life when we bear grudges and keep bitterness close to our heart.        Fastforgiveness  3/1/13

Praise God- the Loving Healer brings us out of the sin-induced psychosis.

This is the evil in everything that happens under the sun: The same destiny overtakes all. The hearts of men, moreover, are full of evil and there is madness in their hearts while they live, and afterward they join the dead.

We willingly chose to drink the brew of bitterness in the name of self righteousness The Gentle Healer brings us to our true place of security and peace and we awake in the arms of the One who always fully loved us.

Dr. Dan Driscoll / Currently on loan to the UK.

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The time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God . . . —1 Peter 4:17

The Christian servant must never forget that salvation is God’s idea, not man’s; therefore, it has an unfathomable depth. Salvation is the great thought of God, not an experience. Experience is simply the door through which salvation comes into the conscious level of our life so that we are aware of what has taken place on a much deeper level. Never preach the experience— preach the great thought of God behind the experience. When we preach, we are not simply proclaiming how people can be saved from hell and be made moral and pure; we are conveying good news about God.

In the teachings of Jesus Christ the element of judgment is always brought out— it is the sign of the love of God. Never sympathize with someone who finds it difficult to get to God; God is not to blame. It is not for us to figure out the reason for the difficulty, but only to present the truth of God so that the Spirit of God will reveal what is wrong. The greatest test of the quality of our preaching is whether or not it brings everyone to judgment. When the truth is preached, the Spirit of God brings each person face to face with God Himself.

If Jesus ever commanded us to do something that He was unable to equip us to accomplish, He would be a liar. And if we make our own inability a stumbling block or an excuse not to be obedient, it means that we are telling God that there is something which He has not yet taken into account. Every element of our own self-reliance must be put to death by the power of God. The moment we recognize our complete weakness and our dependence upon Him will be the very moment that the Spirit of God will exhibit His power.

Matthew 5:21-26– Agree with your adversary quickly . . .

²¹ “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ ²² But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sisterwill be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.²³ “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, ²⁴ leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.²⁵ “Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court. Do it while you are still together on the way, or your adversary may hand you over to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and you may be thrown into prison. ²⁶ Truly I tell you, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny.

In this verse, Jesus Christ laid down a very important principle by saying, “Do what you know you must do— now. Do it quickly. If you don’t, an inevitable process will begin to work ’till you have paid the last penny’ (Matthew 5:26) in pain, agony, and distress.” God’s laws are unchangeable and there is no escape from them. The teachings of Jesus always penetrate right to the heart of our being.

Wanting to make sure that my adversary gives me all my rights is a natural thing. But Jesus says that it is a matter of inescapable and eternal importance to me that I pay my adversary what I owe him. From our Lord’s standpoint it doesn’t matter whether I am cheated or not, but what does matter is that I don’t cheat someone else. Am I insisting on having my own rights, or am I paying what I owe from Jesus Christ’s standpoint?

Do it quickly— bring yourself to judgment now. In moral and spiritual matters, you must act immediately. If you don’t, the inevitable, relentless process will begin to work. God is determined to have His child as pure, clean, and white as driven snow, and as long as there is disobedience in any point of His teaching, He will allow His Spirit to use whatever process it may take to bring us to obedience. The fact that we insist on proving that we are right is almost always a clear indication that we have some point of disobedience. No wonder the Spirit of God so strongly urges us to stay steadfastly in the light!

“Agree with your adversary quickly . . . .” Have you suddenly reached a certain place in your relationship with someone, only to find that you have anger in your heart? Confess it quickly— make it right before God. Be reconciled to that person— do it now!

You will by no means get out of there till you have paid the last penny —Matthew 5:26 Oswald Chambers / My Utmost for His Highest

God has determined to make us pure. The opportunity to forgive others is a great time to burn off a lot of impurities.

There is no such thing as accidental forgiveness. We must do so willfully and with full knowledge that God has brought us there.

The grudge you bear is the root. The ones you can never touch again are the fruit. The cross of Forgiveness is your way back. Repent & Obey

The reality of unforgiving is you cannot rest alone or share love with another without some regret.

It is harder to break a man’s will than to break his sinful habit. This is most true when his will is to be unforgiving.

Every act of Forgiveness is a blow to unseen evil.

By unforgiving we lay burdens upon others which we will not raise one finger to lift while we bury ourselves.

The forgiving draw unto themselves mercy grace love, terms of peace& give thanks The unforgiving draw the train wreck & ask why

When nothing in you wants to forgive the wrong doer you know you are on the edge of a major spiritual breakthrough. Obey & grab it.

Matthew 7:1-5  “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. ² For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.³ “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? ⁴ How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? ⁵ You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

Jesus’ instructions with regard to judging others is very simply put; He says, “Don’t.” The average Christian is the most piercingly critical individual known. Criticism is one of the ordinary activities of people, but in the spiritual realm nothing is accomplished by it. The effect of criticism is the dividing up of the strengths of the one being criticized.

The Holy Spirit is the only one in the proper position to criticize, and He alone is able to show what is wrong without hurting and wounding. It is impossible to enter into fellowship with God when you are in a critical mood. Criticism serves to make you harsh, vindictive, and cruel, and leaves you with the soothing and flattering idea that you are somehow superior to others.

Jesus says that as His disciple you should cultivate a temperament that is never critical. This will not happen quickly but must be developed over a span of time. You must constantly beware of anything that causes you to think of yourself as a superior person.

There is no escaping the penetrating search of my life by Jesus. If I see the little speck in your eye, it means that I have a plank of timber in my own (see Matthew 7:3-5). Every wrong thing that I see in you, God finds in me. Every time I judge, I condemn myself.

Stop having a measuring stick for other people. There is always at least one more fact, which we know nothing about, in every person’s situation. The first thing God does is to give us a thorough spiritual cleaning. After that, there is no possibility of pride remaining in us. I have never met a person I could despair of, or lose all hope for, after discerning what lies in me apart from the grace of God

With what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you —Matthew 7:2

This statement is not some haphazard theory, but it is an eternal law of God. Whatever judgment you give will be the very way you are judged. There is a difference between retaliation and retribution. Jesus said that the basis of life is retribution— “with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.” If you have been shrewd in finding out the shortcomings of others, remember that will be exactly how you will be measured. The way you pay is the way life will pay you back. This eternal law works from God’s throne down to us.

Romans 2:2-4  You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. ² Now we know that God’s judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. ³ So when you, a mere human being, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment? ⁴ Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?

Romans 2 applies it in even a more definite way by saying that the one who criticizes another is guilty of the very same thing. God looks not only at the act itself, but also at the possibility of committing it, which He sees by looking at our hearts.

To begin with, we do not believe the statements of the Bible. For instance, do we really believe the statement that says we criticize in others the very things we are guilty of ourselves? The reason we see hypocrisy, deceit, and a lack of genuineness in others is that they are all in our own hearts.

The greatest characteristic of a saint is humility, as evidenced by being able to say honestly and humbly, “Yes, all those, as well as other evils, would have been exhibited in me if it were not for the grace of God. Therefore, I have no right to judge.”

Jesus said, “Judge not, that you be not judged” (Matthew 7:1). He went on to say, in effect, “If you do judge, you will be judged in exactly the same way.” Who of us would dare to stand before God and say, “My God, judge me as I have judged others”? We have judged others as sinners— if God should judge us in the same way, we would be condemned to hell. Yet God judges us on the basis of the miraculous atonement by the Cross of Christ.

Oswald Chambers / My Utmost for His Highest

Nature of Sin

There is no goodness in sin therefore it is not of God.

Every promise of sin is a delusion.

Sin is so opposite to God that if it were possible that one drop of sin could get into God’s nature, God would instantly cease to be God.

The special end of Christ’s coming was to take away sin, to deliver us from sin.

All sin states one thing, that there is not enough good in God to satisfy the soul.

In sin we set our will above the will of God.

We who are willful cannot stand to have our will crossed especially if it is done by someone inferior to us, we cannot bear it. Consider then the offense you commit against God when you set your will against him in sin.

Sin is a violation of God in his justice. Sin is the one and only thing that breaks the order of God in the world and strikes at God’s purpose to destroy the work of sin.

The Evil of Evils / Jeremiah Burroughs

Conviction of Sin

Sin is a thing that puts man’s self out of center altogether, making it eccentric; and when the spirit of God brings conviction, the man knows he is wrongly related to God, to his own body, and to everything around him, and he is in a state of abject misery. The health of the body is upset, the balance pushed right out, by conviction of sin. Conviction of sin makes a man’s beauty “to consume away like a moth.” Beauty means the perfectly ordered completeness of man’s whole nature. Once a person’s mind is upset that beauty begins to go, the equilibrium is upset. This accounts for the characteristic tendency abroad today; ignore sin, deny it ever was; if you make mistakes, forget them, live the healthy minded, openhearted, sunshiny life, don’t allow yourself to be convicted of sin.

The Holy Spirit in a Christian wars against the old heredity; the new heredity and the old war one against another. Is that all God can do for me; destroy unity in life, make me a divided personality, and make me sick with conviction of sin? If that is all God can do, I would rather be an atheist; but if it is only a stage toward the borderland of mastery, that is a different matter. Paul says if I obey the Spirit of God, I must crucify the other mind. God cannot do that, I must do it myself. Yes, I will agree with the Spirit of God and go to the death of my old disposition (Romans 6:6). If I do not put to death the things in me that are not of God they will put to death the things in me that are of God.

The Holy Spirit applies or administers the work of the atonement to us in the deep unconscious realm as well as in the conscious realm. And it is not until we truly perceive the unrivaled power of the Spirit in us that we understand the meaning of 1 John 1:7 , which says, “. . . the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.” This verse does not refer only to conscious sin, but also to the tremendously profound understanding of sin which only the Holy Spirit in me can accomplish.

Forgiveness of Sin

I have finished the work which You have given Me to do —John 17:4

The death of Jesus Christ is the fulfillment in history of the very mind and intent of God. There is no place for seeing Jesus Christ as a martyr. His death was not something that happened to Him— something that might have been prevented. His death was the very reason He came.

Never build your case for forgiveness on the idea that God is our Father and He will forgive us because He loves us. That contradicts the revealed truth of God in Jesus Christ. It makes the Cross unnecessary, and the redemption “much ado about nothing.” God forgives sin only because of the death of Christ. God could forgive people in no other way than by the death of His Son, and Jesus is exalted as Savior because of His death. “We see Jesus . . . for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor . . .” (Hebrews 2:9). The greatest note of triumph ever sounded in the ears of a startled universe was that sounded on the Cross of Christ— “It is finished!” (John 19:30). That is the final word in the redemption of humankind.

Anything that lessens or completely obliterates the holiness of God, through a false view of His love, contradicts the truth of God as revealed by Jesus Christ. Never allow yourself to believe that Jesus Christ stands with us, and against God, out of pity and compassion, or that He became a curse for us out of sympathy for us. Jesus Christ became a curse for us by divine decree. Our part in realizing the tremendous meaning of His curse is the conviction of sin. Conviction is given to us as a gift of shame and repentance; it is the great mercy of God. Jesus Christ hates the sin in people, and Calvary is the measure of His hatred.

My Utmost for His Highest / Oswald Chambers

When He has come, He will convict the world of sin —John 16:8

Adapted from Oswald Chambers My Utmost for His Highest – 11/19

Very few of us know anything about conviction of sin. We know the experience of being disturbed because we have done wrong things. But conviction of sin by the Holy Spirit blots out every relationship on earth and makes us aware of only one— “Against You, You only, have I sinned . . .”

Psalm 51:4-6 (NIV)

⁴ Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight;
so you are right in your verdict
and justified when you judge.
⁵ Surely I was sinful at birth,
sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
⁶ Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb;
you taught me wisdom in that secret place.

Psalm 51:4 (MSG)

^4-6 You’re the One I’ve violated, and you’ve seen
it all, seen the full extent of my evil.
You have all the facts before you;
whatever you decide about me is fair.
I’ve been out of step with you for a long time,
in the wrong since before I was born.
What you’re after is truth from the inside out.
Enter me, then; conceive a new, true life.

1.)   Has conviction of sin ever gripped you this way, that you see your sin as against God and Him only?

With God and sin we are not talking how we feel about doing bad things. We are dealing with the ultimate realities of divine and human nature and the balance of all things in creation and beyond. What can we possibly hope to accomplish in the way of forgiveness by human rationale, plans or purpose?

When a person is convicted of sin in this way, he knows with every bit of his conscience that God would not dare to forgive him. If God did forgive him, then this person would have a stronger sense of justice than God. God does forgive, but it cost the breaking of His heart with grief in the death of Christ to enable Him to do so.

2.)   You are not forgiven because you want to be forgiven, you are forgiven because God crushed His son for your sins.

To be redeemed would indeed be the greatest desire any person could form in their heart or mind. However, what would be the purpose or effect of that desire if God merely loved you? Wouldn’t that simply make you a beloved sinner (contradiction in terms).

The great miracle of the grace of God is that He forgives sin, and it is the death of Jesus Christ alone that enables the divine nature to forgive and to remain true to itself in doing so.                                                                                             It is shallow nonsense to say that God forgives us because He is love.                                                             Once we have been convicted of sin, we will never say this again.                                                                                          The love of God means Calvary— nothing less!

Loving is fairly easy compared to dying. Dying is fairly easy compared to sending your most beloved Son to His death. Even that would have been fairly easy if those He was sent to die for had received Him.

Romans 5:6-9 (NIV)

⁶ You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. ⁷ Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. ⁸ But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.⁹ Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!

Romans 5:6-9 (KJV)

⁶ For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.⁷ For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die.⁸ But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.⁹ Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.

The love of God is spelled out on the Cross and nowhere else. The only basis for which God can forgive me is the Cross of Christ. It is there that His conscience is satisfied.

3.)  If God’s conscience is satisfied with the sacrifice of His Son for your sin, should you continue life after redemption with a guilty conscience?

Forgiveness doesn’t merely mean that I am saved from hell and have been made ready for heaven (no one would accept forgiveness on that level). Forgiveness means that I am forgiven into a newly created relationship which identifies me with God in Christ. The miracle of redemption is that God turns me, the unholy one, into the standard of Himself, the Holy One. He does this by putting into me a new nature, the nature of Jesus Christ.

Be glad when God shall remind you of your past so that you will never fall into a false sense of security for the present.

Colossians 2:6-15 (NIV)

⁶ So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, ⁷ rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.

⁸ See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forcesof this world rather than on Christ.

⁹ For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, ¹⁰ and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority. ¹¹ In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self ruled by the fleshwas put off when you were circumcised byChrist, ¹² having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.

¹³ When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made youalive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, ¹⁴ having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. ¹⁵ And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.

Can you find one speck of condemnation for your past in this scripture, in any scripture? Christ has overcome every obstacle for us single handedly. Neither you nor your past can refute or renounce that which He has done. Leave the irreparable past in God’s ha

Cleansing the conscience

God in forgiving man, gives him the heredity of His son, meaning, He turns them into the standard  of the forgiver.

A man may say, “I don’t deny that God will forgive me, but what about the folks I have done wrong to? Can God give me a clearinghouse for my conscience?”

Hebrews 9:13-14 

The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. ¹⁴ How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!

It is because these things are neglected in the presentation of redemption that men are kept away from Jesus Christ. Men are kept away by honesty more than by dishonesty.

When a man gets rightly adjusted to God his conscience staggers him, and his reason condemns him from all standpoints.

Conscience is not the voice of God; conscience is that faculty in me which appeals to the highest I know; it may or may not be religious. God has a conscience toward human beings and toward himself, that is, he has a standard to keep, and the problem He is up against is not to wipe the muddle off the slate, but to resolve it back again, and redemption is his way of doing it

Jesus Christ’s revelation is the forgiveness of God, and the tremendous miracle of redemption is that God turns me, the unholy one, into the standard of himself, the forgiver, by the miracle of putting into me a new disposition. The question up to me is-“do I want him to do it?” God’s forgiveness is a bigger miracle than we are apt to think. He will not only restore to us what the canker worm has eaten; not only deliver us from hell; not only make a clearinghouse for conscience; but he will give a totally new heredity; and many a man who has shut himself down in despair need not despair anymore. God can forgive a man anything but despair that He can forgive him.

It is a great thing to have a spiritual experience but another thing to think of the basis of it.

The highest standard God has is Himself, and it is up to God to make man as good as He is Himself; and it is up to me to let him do it.

Supposing the view of the Bible to be the right, to whom is it “up to” to right the wrong? The creator, has He done it? He has, and He has done it absolutely single-handed. The tremendous revelation of Christianity is not the fatherhood of God but the babyhood of God-God became the weakest thing in his own creation, and in flesh and blood he levered it back to where it was intended to be. No one helped him; it was done absolutely by God manifest in human flesh. God has undertaken not only to repair the damage, but in Jesus Christ the human race is put in a better condition than when it was originally designed. It is necessary to understand these things if you are able to battle for your faith the deity of the Christian religion

Jesus Christ’s view is that the Christian religion has been tried and abandoned, but never in tried and failed.

God’s conscience means he has to forgive completely and finally redeem the human race. The point about Christian forgiveness is not that God puts snow over a dung heap, but that He turns a man into the standard of the forgiver. The great thing up to God is that in forgiving me he has to give me the heredity of His son. God himself has answered the problem of sin and there is no man on earth who cannot be presented “perfected in Jesus,

Oswald Chambers- The Highest Good – The Shadow of an Agony

Rend your heart and not your garments.

Joel 1:20
Even the wild animals pant for you; the streams of water have dried up and fire has devoured the pastures in the wilderness.

Even the inferior creatures instinctively showed their suffering for the peoples’ transgression. And what better are we than beasts, if we never cry to God but for food and wine, and complain of the want of the delights of sense? Yet their crying to God in those cases, shames the stupidity of those who cry not to God in any case.

Joel 2:13      

 Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the LORD your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity.

There must be outward expressions of sorrow and shame, fasting, weeping, and mourning; tears for trouble must be turned into tears and disgust for the sin that caused it. But rending the garments would be vain, except their hearts were rent by abasement and self-abhorrence; by sorrow for their sins, and separation from them. There is no question but that if we truly repent of our sins, God will forgive them; but whether he will remove affliction is not promised, yet the probability of it should encourage us to repent. His promises are real answers to the prayers of faith; with him saying and doing are not two things.

1. Is there a connection between the sense of pain and loss in our hearts as we are convicted of sin and the pain of Christ on the cross for the sins of the world?

2. Why are we allowed to feel pain for sin?

 3. Can the pain of sin be good?