You may not deserve forgiveness, but it’s there for you anyway. Ask God for it.
God’s forgiveness is always reliable.
I don’t know if it was planned or an accident, but here we are on the anniversary of the worst terror attack on American soil, talking about the Promise of Forgiveness. Hmmm.
Matt. 6:14-15 contains sentences with dependent clauses [English nerd alert]. This just means that one segment of the sentence can’t stand alone and still make sense.
The truth is, these verses demonstrate the “If…then…”conditional structure. If you do (this), THEN (this) will happen.
- If you forgive…THEN you are forgiven.
- If you don’t forgive…God won’t either.
On the surface, that seems easy.
Sure. I can be irritated that someone cut in front of me in the grocery store checkout line. But I don’t hold a grudge about it. That would be silly.
But there are times when I seem to have cultivated my anger–for years. As I looked withing myself this week, I didn’t like what I saw. I’ve tried to dress it up and make it look pretty, but there’s anger in me. And that just won’t do. I’m certain these people have no clue of my feelings, but the anger, bitterness and resentment are real. (Sorry. But if you’re looking for someone who’s got it all together, you need to keep on looking.)
“Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.”
Some things I’m just NOT okay with:
- the people who hurt my (now adult) kids
- people who use abortion as birth control
- terrorists
- parents who neglect child’s physical, emotional and educational needs
- Politicians who are too busy spouting off negative comments about their opponents to ever talk about real issues
So God used this lesson as a gentle 2×4 across my forehead. “Wake up, Kathy! Turn all this over to God and let Him deal with it.”
I listed my basic supplies for this month’s art theme here.
This week’s photo reminds me of siblings. Almost feels like the little girl needs to forgive someone for making here wear her heavy coat for the picture while brother has on short pants. Again, the color splash from Mary Brack’s circle tutorial depicts the promise that God will forgive whenever we get our end of things settled. This week I used clocks to remind me to take some time to deal with this.
If you have some suggestions for resolving anger, please share! Post your tips on my Facebook page here.
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