Good News

I felt like writing again on forgiveness today. Strangely, or rather apparently, there is a need for me to be writing on the subject again. Last week I blogged that forgiveness is for everyone. There is power in forgiveness and I wanted to write on it once more. Forgive Everyone. And I mean everyone, and the harder it is to mouth the words and to sum up the courage to do so, the more essential it is for you to release the burden of that hatred. Hatred is a prison. Forgiveness is freedom. Last week, when I wrote on the subject I was much more focused on the process of forgiveness that brings healing to the broken or to the offender. I wanted to segue just a little to the right and write for a moment on forgiving yourself. Some of us have a difficult time forgiving and loving ourselves. We find it so much easier to forgive and love “other” people but we are hard on ourselves. We hold on to past offenses and feelings of regret. We spout hateful words to ourselves, “You suck.” “You’ll never change.” “Once a loser always a loser.” But I want to remind you that in Christ you have received (been given) FORGIVENESS of all sins. Not on the basis of your own perfection or your own righteousness; but on the basis of His free gift.

I was listening to a remarkable man of God, Joseph Prince today and he was preaching a message on grace and He said something very true and very pure. To surmise, he essentially said that there is no grace message. It is just the gospel. “The gospel is grace.” If we believe that the gospel is absent of grace, or that grace is a by-product of the gospel than we have entirely (I’ll repeat, entirely) misunderstood and misrepresented the gospel as Jesus Christ delivered it. If grace is something all together separate than we have not fully understood the good news. We have added something to it that God did not intend. My husband often preaches that the cross is not an addition sign. It is not The Cross plus what I do. It is very simply what Christ has done. Period. The good news (gospel) is that our sins have been FORGIVEN. Gone. Gone. Gone.

Forgive everyone including yourself. Let God love you and be as good to you as He wants to. Not long ago, I had a thought. I was thinking about myself and I had a few gripes against Natrietia. And the Holy Spirit whispered to me, “What would you tell someone who was going through what you are going through? How would you encourage them?” I smiled of course. And it was then, that I learned something. I learned that I have to encourage myself, minister to myself just like I would a fellow brother or sister. I have to think of myself, as God does. I have to forgive myself, just as Christ forgives me. I have to receive the good news…. Daily. Some people subscribe to their local newspaper or world news chronicle to keep them informed. But there is news, that God has delivers to you daily that will keep you in a place of liberty and freedom...it is the good news, the gospel of Jesus Christ.