A Whole New Life

Read: Romans 5: 6-10

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself." - Luke 10:27

You may be experiencing the worse that life has to offer. Maybe you lost your home, your mate, your child or your job. You may be devastated right now with your stomach in knots, confusion ambushing your mind and no resources to depend upon. Do not attempt to get through these distressing and demoralizing times by yourself. You may put a bandage on the problems, but this is simply a temporary and superficial healing.

There is a Friend who sticks closer than a brother (Proverbs 18:24). He will walk with you and guide you through the depths of your grief, suffering and uncertainty. There is no other friend that compares to a personal relationship with Jesus Christ (1 John 3:1). In Christ, the healing from your loss will be total and complete. If you do not have the Lord Jesus Christ in your life, I want to encourage you come to know Him as your personal Savior. His love will never let you go.

You may think that God could never love you because of all the wrong actions and decisions you made in your life. There are numerous accounts in the Bible where God forgave vile sinners. God loves each person the same. You can be confident of His unconditional love for you (John 3:16). All He wants is for you to believe and cease your sinful behavior (Matthew 21:32). Then, He will reach down his Father’s arms and pick you up and hold you until your fears and pain are gone (Psalm 68:5). The Holy Spirit will restore your life to sanity, stability and order if you will follow His leading moment by moment throughout your day.

Have the courage to completely release the shredded remnants of your existence and embrace His will for your life. He hears the prayers of the afflicted (Psalm 10:17). He encourages us and listens to us when we cry out to Him (1 John 5: 14-15; Psalm 54:2). He keeps every one of our tears in a bottle and records them in His book (Psalm 56:8). He defends the fatherless, the oppressed and the widow. He removes the terror from our life (Psalm 10:17-18). Surrendering your life to Christ is the first step of faith. If you sincerely pray to release control over your life to God, He will immediately act upon it. The words of your prayers are not as important as your heartfelt motives.

At just the right moment, when we were powerless over sin and our ungodly ways, Christ died for us. While we were still sinning, God demonstrated His love for us by sending His only begotten Son to die in our place. Jesus justifies us by His blood and saves us from God’s wrath. Even when we were still God’s enemies, Jesus reconciled us to God by His death and saved us through His life (Romans 5: 6-10). Once we repent of our sins, God remembers them no more (Romans 8:1; Hebrews 8:12).

Jesus is the only way, truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Him (John 14:6). We cannot enter heaven through our own good deeds or morally upright behavior. We cannot go to heaven by joining a church, getting baptized or living in a Christian home. Salvation is a free gift from God and there is no way we can boast about it (Ephesians 2: 8-10). Eternal life is free, but only those who believe in and surrender control of their lives to Jesus will receive it (John 3:36).

Prayer:
Lord Jesus, I turn complete control of my life over to You. Thank You for forgiving me of my self-centered lifestyle. Thank You for adopting me into Your family. Hold me, protect me, nurture me and comfort me. Reassure me that You have everything under Your control. Thank You for plucking me out of my old lifestyle and giving me this wondrous new life in You. I will live each day in Your will with the knowledge that You already secured for me my eternal destination. Thank You for all you do for all of us each and every day.

Thought for the Day:

God’s love for us defies description, because it is more than we can comprehend.

Forgiveness, the Two-edged Sword

Read: Matthew 6: 14-15 

“Even if that person wrongs you seven times a day and each time turns again and asks forgiveness, you must forgive.” – Luke 17:4

People use all sorts of crutches to endure their times of loneliness and despair, which they feel deep within their soul. They use alcohol, drugs, relationships, shopping, food, money, gambling, codependency, internet, breaking the law, pornography, video games, etc. to mask their pain. They live in denial and make excuses for their behavior. The pain of past encounters usually drives people to make poor choices. They use these alternatives to mask their pain and to deal with life.

These crutches lead to erratic behavior, impaired thinking and judgment, slower reaction times, loss of control, moodiness, slurred speech, double vision, impaired memory, depression, infertility, premature babies, birth defects, increased heart rate, potential cardiac problems, lung cancer, chronic bronchitis, asthma, defective immune system, reduced resistance levels to disease and illness and a host of other maladies. They are not a very good way to cope with life’s issues.

There is only one way to fill the void in your soul, and that is to surrender your life to Jesus Christ. He calls us to be converted and to repent of our sins, so that our sins may be blotted out of His record book forever (Acts 3:19). If we confess our sins, He is faithful and honorable and He forgives them. He not only forgives them, but He also cleanses us from the penalty of all our unrighteous deeds ( 1 John 1:9). Our sins are like scarlet, but He washes them white as snow with his own blood (Matthew 26:28). Though they are red like crimson, He makes them white as lamb's wool (Isaiah 1:18). Then He brings us times of refreshing as we bask in His presence (Acts 3:19). 

Once we are in Christ, we are a new creation; old things have passed away and all things are becoming new through the process of sanctification (2 Corinthians 5:17). In Him, we have redemption through His blood and forgiveness of our sins, according to the riches of His grace (Ephesians 1:7). Though we have lived in rebellion against Him, He grants us mercy and forgiveness (Daniel 9:9). He has removed our transgressions so completely that, He casts them away as far as the east is from the west (Psalm 103:12). He also casts all our sins into the depths of the sea (Micah 7:19). He promises not to remember our sins and lawless deeds ever again (Hebrews 10:17; Isaiah 43:25).

Forgiveness is actually a two-edged sword. If you do not forgive others their trespasses against you, then neither can your Heavenly Father forgive your trespasses against Him and other people (Matthew 6:14-15). For some reason forgiveness is foreign to many people. We punish ourselves inordinately and we punish others by holding them accountable for their actions toward us. As soon as you come to Christ in repentance, He forgives all of your sins. Then you are free to forgive others their trespasses against you. Actually, because we freely received God’s Love, we can freely forgive our self and others by realizing that we are all mere mortals striving to do our best.

So, when you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive them; so that your Father in heaven may also forgive you (Mark 11:25). We have redemption and forgiveness of all our sins through His blood, now and for all time (Colossians 1:13-14). Forgiveness gives us freedom from the bondage of bitterness (Hebrews 12:15), which will defile our whole body, soul and spirit (1 Thessalonians 5: 23). Forgiveness actually turns those who offended us over to God to deal with and to extract revenge in His timing and in His way (Romans 12:19). We also often fail to accept His forgiveness of our sins as a free gift (Romans 6:23). We attempt to earn it by our works, or we refuse to appropriate it to our lives by forgiving our self and those who mistreat us.

 
Prayer:
Lord Jesus, when I fail to forgive my self and others, please remind me that You died to insure our forgiveness. I often find myself attributing mortal characteristics to You, forgetting You are an immortal God. Father God, Satan wants me to fear that You will tire of my failings and eventually reject me totally. I know that the good news is that we may make mistakes, but Your love is not contingent upon our works. You call us to aspire to perfection, but You know that without You we can do nothing (John 15:5). You created us as human beings and You know our character will grow with each trial through which we persevere.

Thought for the Day:

Jesus endured the cross to ensure that we will join Him in eternity.