Category: Christian Thoughts

If We Don’t Forgive We Won’t Be Forgiven

Forgiveness is not easy and life is not fair.

It tests what our faith is based on… my feelings or God’s word.

There’s an often misused passage in the Bible.

It’s in Luke 6:38 “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.”

Jesus is not taking about money, but forgiveness. Read it and see for yourself.

What He was saying is that if we don’t forgive we won’t be forgiven. That’s pretty tough.

If I don’t forgive it’s me that’s in the wrong ? That’s doubly unfair in our own eyes.

What do we do?

This is exactly why we need the “road of the cross” and the Holy Spirit to help us walk it.

Jesus is our example, he didn’t resist. He laid His life down and waited for the Spirit of God to raise Him to life and freedom.

The Lord looks at the heart. Perhaps you can’t forgive… but the key is to want to be able to… that’s enough for the Lord to work with.

He never despises a broken spirit and a contrite heart. Ask Him, he will help you.

The cross is the only solution!

  • Mark Saunders

God’s Heart For Us Is To Be Free

Freedom is something we all want.
But what is freedom?

Woman Jumping Freely Wearing Green Backpack

God’s heart for us is to be free. He gave us free will and desires relationship with us in freedom. He’s not looking for “religious robots.”

But here’s the thing… we’re all infected with a “virus” called sin which restricts our freedom.

We’re born with it as a consequence of Adam’s fall. When he used his free will to rebel against the authority of God it was as if he’d been “infected with sin.”

We’re easily imprisoned by sin. It brings destruction, broken relationships and eventually spiritual death. It’s symptoms are evident all around us.

We need to be delivered from our “virus.”

Jesus did just that. He took the consequences of our sin for us on himself… separation from God and spiritual death.

But death could not hold him. Three days later he rose from the dead. The spiritual consequences of sin had been defeated. My part is to sincerely repent and receive God’s forgiveness.

At the point of genuine repentance a miracle happens. The Lord changes our hearts. It’s called being “born again.”

We’re not “sin free”…show me a perfect Christian… there are none… but our the motivations of our hearts change and our lives begin to change.

By the grace of God, through faith in Christ we are restored to the original freedom of relationship that He first intended to have with him and those around us.

Psalm 146:7
Who executes justice for the oppressed,
Who gives food to the hungry.
The Lord gives freedom to the prisoners.

Galatians 5:1
Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.

  • Mark Saunders