The child which Elizabeth was carrying recognized Jesus as the Savior while both were still in their mother’s wombs. He was to be the “voice of one crying in the wilderness”, John the Baptist.
Matthew 6:15
But if you do not let men have forgiveness for their sins, you will not have forgiveness from your Father for your sins.
We are to forgive others so that we can be forgiven. There are over one hundred verses in the New Testament about forgiveness and most of them apply this concept from you to another who has wronged you in some way. Will God forgive you? Yes, but He won’t forgive you if you are holding a grudge or some other hurt in your heart toward someone else and you won’t let it go.
We are called to be more like Jesus and He forgave those who nailed Him to the cross just before He gave up His spirit. We are supposed to be more like Him in our walk with God in this life but many of us hold on to bitterness from years ago even though it is giving us an ulcer. Being a forgiver of others shows that your heart has changed and it is now the home of the Holy Spirit of God. We couldn’t forgive without His Spirit within us because it is not in human nature to forgive. But with Jesus as our Savior and with His Spirit living within us ALL things are possible.
Can we forgive perfectly and completely? Eventually. Even with the Spirit of God living in your life and your heart, Satan will bring to your remembrance the wrong that you have tried to forgive. He will pester your mind with it and try to ruin your life with it, but with prayer and by seeking the strength of Jesus to help you to forgive it can be forgiven. Our mind may not let it go immediately and it may take a good deal of Bible study and prayer to let something go if it was a really bad hurt in your past but with God’s help you and I can do it.
Jesus taught that it is our duty, as believers, to forgive others. There is no limit to the number of times that we are told to forgive for an offense, and it is to be done completely and immediately. If you will not forgive your brother, then God will not forgive you for your sins. As I stated in a paragraph above, it may take some study and prayer to completely forgive and forget but with God all things are possible.
If you are wondering whether God will show up during your problem…don’t. He is already there. His strength and ability to take care of the problem is already available to you…just pray. God did not leave Noah, He didn’t leave Moses, and He never left David or Daniel and Jesus was never alone on that cross! Your disease or cancer or whatever it may be is not strong enough to give God any trouble at all. He created ALL things therefore He can cure and fix anything.
If your life has taken a turn toward a place that you don’t want to go, put your trust in the One Who can lead you toward the Light of God’s love because He is Love personified! In the form of Jesus the Son of God He did everything that He can do now and He is able to take your situation and turn it into a winning one for you and for His glory.
God said, “Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house. Test Me in this,” says the LORD of Hosts. “See if I will not open the windows of heaven and pour out for you blessing without measure….” Malachi 3:10 Put your faith in Him because He can do this! It is true that God was speaking of bringing a tithe into the storehouse of the Temple, but you could tithe your time or yourself as well and claim this promise of God. He can and will pour out blessings without measure but you have to place your faith in Him and in what He can do.
A prayer without faith to back it up and repentance in your life to show that you are serious will not work. God knows you and your heart and your motives better than you do so trying to “cut a deal” with God doesn’t work. You have to truly mean what you say and say what you mean!
Trust in Him to take care of you and He will because…our God is able!
God knew us before the foundation of the world, our world. It was Jesus as the Son Who formed Adam from the dirt and clay mud in the Garden. Since God lives outside of our universe, He is outside of time as well. He sees the beginning and the end just as we can see the driveway at our homes from the beginning to the end.
God loves each of you far more deeply and with more intimacy than we can imagine. That is why it hurts Him when you reject His gift of eternity through Jesus the Christ. I pray that everyone who reads this will be touched enough to seek out their Savior in Jesus. God reaches out to those who are willing to hear Him and He knows who you are. If you feel His touch in your life, please don’t turn away from it.
We are useful to God in many ways and our life is a work in progress. He can use our talent in many ways if we will follow his ways. But, you have to work with Him. Learn from Him and from His Word because if you don’t, you won’t know His voice or His wisdom.
Not one of us is born into our life on Earth or our spiritual life with Jesus knowing how everything works. We have to grow and learn as children and when we accept Him as our Savior we have to grow in His Wisdom and through the knowledge which is given to us through His Word. It is a process just like going through grammar school and high school and college. We are not born knowing how to add or subtract and we won’t know how to handle the hardships of life as a new Christian if we don’t read and study the Bible.
It takes commitment and determination to learn about the wisdom found in the Bible. Most people who call themselves Christians today only read it when they are at church. There are very few people who read it daily. Even if they do they aren’t reading it in a prayerful, answer-seeking way. Some are just reading it because they are trying to read through it in a year so it’s more akin to a college assignment than a religious commitment.
God uses many ways to bring us to the point where He needs us to be spiritually. Sometimes, He uses illness or a setback in our business or our finances. Sometimes it may be a death in the family which brings us to Him so that we will seek His answers to life’s questions. You need to realize this: He is never really finished with your learning. You will be learning and growing for many years into eternity. Just because we are given a renewed and glorified body and mind when we get to Heaven, doesn’t mean that He dumps all of the knowledge that you will ever need into your brain.
We are never “done” with learning or with life, if you are a child of God and have accepted Jesus as your Savior. God doesn’t have favorites but He does want a relationship with each one of us if we will follow Him.
Behold my servant, whom I have chosen; my beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased: I will put my spirit upon him, and he shall shew judgment to the Gentiles.
Matthew 12:18 KJV
https://bible.com/bible/1/mat.12.18.KJV
The Living Message of Christ 