Introduction

One of the most challenging aspects for any Christian in their walk with the Lord is the ability to forgive unconditionally. We all have victory in receiving forgiveness, but granting forgiveness – especially when the other party has no desire to be forgiven – can be flat-out distressing.

While this article is written mainly with the new believer in mind, I believe the mature believer should find much to appreciate in this study. One can live a lifetime knowing the Lord and His Word, but when it comes to the act and commandment to forgive, we are never too settled in our growth not to be reminded of this very difficult subject that pushes against not only our flesh but of logic and reason as well.

Let’s take a look at the Scriptures concerning forgiveness and see what we might be able to learn when it comes to our God-given responsibilities and roles in this very difficult human endeavor.

Forgiving Our Brothers and Sisters in Christ

At first glance, this seems to be the easiest of all forgiveness requirements. After all, each and every believer has accepted God’s grace and free gift of salvation through Christ’s forgiveness of our sins on the cross, so it really shouldn’t be a burden to forgive our brothers and sisters of transgressions against us. Or so we might think. Let’s dig in.

After warning the disciples of those who cause offense against the “little ones” and that it would be better if a millstone were hung on his neck and drowned in the sea, Jesus gives another warning:

“Take heed to yourselves: If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive him. And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again to thee, saying, I repent; thou shalt forgive him” (Luke 17:3-4).

The key to this passage, in my opinion, is the trespasser is repenting and asking forgiveness. One would think this would be an easy proposition for the offended believer. But, honestly, being offended seven times in just one day does seem to be a little much. Yet Christ wouldn’t have commanded us to do such a thing if it weren’t in our capacity, with the indwelling Holy Spirit, to do so.

Paul, after his teaching on putting off the old man of sin and putting on the new man being made in the image of Christ, added that they should also…

“Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering; Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye” (Colossians 3:12-13).

Here’s the crux of the matter: Just as Christ freely forgave us of our sins, we should always be willing to forgive those whom He also has purchased with His precious blood in payment for their sins. Their sins are no different than ours, and we would desire the same from them if the tables were turned; and turned they will be, because, until the Lord calls us home, we are just as susceptible to transgressing against them as they are to transgressing against us.

Paul, admonishing the Ephesians not to grieve the Holy Spirit, directed them to…

“… be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you” (Ephesians 4:32).

Just as Christ’s everlasting mercy was applied to us in our infirmities – past, present, and future – just so, our mercies should always be extended to the family of God as we are altogether being made into a new creation in Christ Jesus.

When Christ had finished his discourse on how trespasses against a brother should be handled in His church, Peter had a question:

“… Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?” (Matthew 18:21b).

“Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven” seven” (Matthew 18:22).

In the Luke passage above, Christ admonished a believer to forgive a brother or sister seven times in one day. Now it’s up to seventy times seven? Wow! What a challenge! But when one considers what Christ has done for us, we come down a little easier to earth in understanding that what He is requiring of us really isn’t as difficult as it appears to be when a brother or sister is genuinely sorry and truly repentant. Especially when His Spirit is leading and guiding us.

And after the parable of the wicked servant who was forgiven of his master of much and did not forgive his own debtor of a little, Christ warned those who would not forgive:

“So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses” (Matthew 18:35).

There’s no exception to this rule: We must forgive our brothers and sisters in Christ, or the Father will not forgive us. This is sobering. But this challenge of forgiving brothers and sisters in Christ is just beginning!

Forgiving Others

Now we progress from our brothers and sisters in Christ to men and women who haven’t put their faith and trust in the Lord – those who often mistreat the Christian in everyday living and, at the very least, don’t honor our Lord as they should. We must certainly have more leeway in not having to forgive them for trespasses and sins against us as believers, right? At least a little bit?

A warning from Jesus after teaching the disciples how to pray:

“For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (Matthew 6:14-15).

Well, I guess not. The standard seems to be the same with all men as with our brothers and sisters in the Lord. Very high standards, indeed! But what should we expect from such a loving and merciful God who desires that all come to repentance and salvation in Jesus Christ?

When teaching on the power of prayer, when one believes and has faith to move mountains, Jesus gave the same warning:

“And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses. But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses” (Mark 11:25-26).

Regarding mercy and forgiveness, Jesus declared:

“Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful. Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven” (Luke 6:36-37).

Just as we were moved by the grace and love of Christ in His compassion for the salvation of our souls, so too will many of those who have yet to give their lives to Him. This is the lesson: There are more souls to save, and we have the obligation – in fact, it should be our firmest desire – to represent the Lord as He would have us represent Him. What greater way in showing fallen mankind the love and grace of God than for His people to show that same love, mercy, and grace, through forgiveness, to those who so desperately need Him!

The disciples asked the Lord how they should pray. And in the example of an acceptable prayer to God that Jesus gave them, He acknowledged the disciple should petition of God to…

“… forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us …” (Luke 11:4).

In this, the Father will always hear our prayers and petitions as we will be carrying out his will in the forgiveness of trespasses and sins committed against us by believers and unbelievers alike.

Well, that should be it, right? Wrong!

Forgiving Our Enemies

How can a man forgive his enemies? According to Christ, his disciples must first love their enemies:

“Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.

^“For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so?

^“Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:43-48).

We must remember that Christ loved His enemies:

“But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

Christ prayed for His enemies who crucified Him:

“… Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do…” (Luke 23:34).

If we can love our enemies, then we most certainly can forgive them. We must forgive them – whether they ask for it or not – as forgiveness is just as much needed for the person who gives the forgiveness as for the one who desperately needs to receive the forgiveness.

It is this love for enemies that ultimately brings those enemies of Christ to Christ. Will everyone come? Of course not. But knowing who will come and respond to the love and grace of Christ shown through the believer, often because of forgiveness, is not for us to know. What is for us to know is that every last human being on earth needs Jesus, and it is our job as ambassadors for Christ to show them Who they so desperately need.

“And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again. Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more. Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. Now then we are ambassadors for Christ …” (2 Corinthians 5:15-20a) (emphasis mine)

Practical Helps

I would like to share a couple of practical tools I have used throughout the years to assist me while relying on the Holy Spirit for guidance as I seek to forgive others. The two keys are “forgiving” and “forgetting” and, depending on the situation – at least for me – not necessarily in that order.

But don’t be remiss: As Christians, we must forgive all people – family, friends, acquaintances, believers, unbelievers, and enemies – each and every one.

Forgiving and Forgetting

When somebody has wronged me – and they apologize and/or ask me for forgiveness – forgiving and forgetting is the proper sequence for me. I would think it would be for everyone else as well. This is the formula we should all seek to use when somebody sins against us and is repentant and sorry for their actions. Forgiveness is never really complete until the forgiver can truly forget. So, after you have forgiven the offender, never forget to forget. We should never remember their past trespasses against us, for we are to never bring them up again – they are forgiven.

What I have found, though, is that reversing the order can be quite advantageous when dealing with the opposite situation.

Forgetting and Forgiving

When somebody has wronged me – and they do not apologize and/or ask for my forgiveness – forgetting, then forgiving, seems to work best for me. But if you venture to take this approach, don’t neglect the forgiving once you have forgotten, or you will have missed the point of forgiveness.

Now, if you can forgive and forget in this situation as well, you should absolutely do so as this is the appropriate way. But there are times when someone has been victimized and/or intensely mistreated, and with the abuser unable or unwilling to acknowledge their sins against them, that forgiving and forgetting may be a difficult endeavor. You can do it – you have the Holy Spirit – but, honestly, sometimes it can be very, very difficult.

So, when this has happened to me, I will sit down and write out a responsive reply to the person who has wronged me but has never asked for forgiveness. I never intend to actually give it to the person; it’s strictly for me. (Although I would give it to the person if he or she pushed the issue, but not until I have completed the process.)

By writing out what you would like to say to the person regarding their wronging of you, what you are trying to accomplish is releasing any animosity, frustration, and ill-will you may have against that person. You may find this rather therapeutic. These are very real feelings that need to be expressed in righteousness and sincerity. At first, what you write down may often be very harsh and, honestly, rather un-Christlike. Therefore, because you are a child of God, you need to edit, rewrite, add to, take away, etc., for an undermined period of time. You do not want your write-up to be anything other than godly and respectable. Your finished product must be something that you would give to or say to the person if he or she insisted on pushing the issue even further, invariably causing more unnecessary harm and malice.

At times, I’ve even gotten up in the middle of the night because the situation was weighing on my mind, or I thought of something else to add, or a different way I should have said something. By getting up and typing out what was on my mind, I was able to release what my mind was preoccupied with, so I was able to sleep, knowing that I had progressed positively in my pursuit to complete the task at hand.

Once you are comfortable with what you have documented – what you would say to the person should it ever be brought up again without them offering you an apology and/or asking for forgiveness – then you begin the process of putting it all behind you and forgetting. You will find that as you begin the process of forgetting, you’ll invariably, often unbeknownst to yourself, start the forgiving process. It’s just a natural progression that I’ve found works really well for me. Again, there’s the very real possibility that once you’ve forgotten, you may forget to forgive. Don’t let this happen, or the process is incomplete.

Again, if you’re a person who can always forgive and then forget, by all means, keep it up! For me, personally, it really does make a difference in whether the person is willing to apologize and/or ask for forgiveness, but not always, though. Whichever way works best for you, just make sure you’re able to do both – forgive and forget.

The Challenge of Forgiveness

Forgiveness is needed for the believer because of sin – sin in our own lives and sin in the lives of others. We have wronged others just as we have been wronged, and no one is exempt.

While there are many different aspects to sin and trespasses – and we need to be honest here, they are all an abomination before a Holy God – to our finite minds, we have the tendency to categorize sin by degrees of impact. But sin is sin, and we all have this scourge living inside of us. And until we are called home, sin can always, without warning, raise its ugly head at any time. This is the battle of the believer until glory, and we dare not wink at this truth. We are all susceptible and need to remember our frailty when it comes to forgiveness – both to receive and to give – following the leading of the Holy Spirit and pattern our lives after Christ, who is our example.

The Lord Jesus Christ gives His children The Challenge of Forgiveness not as a request or a suggestion – but as a command. Our Savior would never command us something that was impossible for us to achieve. He promised us His Holy Spirit, and He has gifted us with Himself to help us in our pursuit to be conformed into His image – a process that takes time.

With the indwelling Holy Spirit as our guide, and as difficult as it may seem at times to be, we have His power to grant absolute forgiveness of those who have wronged us. This is a given. All we have to do is give our hurts, our insecurities, our human emotions and fears, and render it all to Him for healing. He wants it all. He paid for it all. And He will give His all that we may become the people of God He has predestined us to be. He will not fail if we are willing to be used by Him and for Him.

God, in His Word, has promised the believer that sin will one day be put to death entirely:

“He will turn again, he will have compassion upon us; he will subdue our iniquities; and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea” (Micah 7:19).

Even though the above promise was made to Israel, we can – as the bride of Christ – apply this to ourselves with utmost confidence.

“For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us” (Psalm 103:11-12).

Gone forever will be the curse, and sin will no longer have any hold on the child of God, nor be remembered ever again:

“… their sins and iniquities will I remember no more” (Isaiah 10:17).

For in preparation of the Eternal Kingdom, where righteousness will reign supreme, God says,

“For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind” (Isaiah 65:17).

This will be the ultimate reward for all of God’s children who, in Christ Jesus, heed and fulfill The Challenge of Forgiveness – an eternity of fellowship with our Creator, Savior, and King in His glorious Eternal Kingdom!

Love, grace, mercy, and shalom in Messiah Yeshua, and Maranatha!

➢ Email: mab10666@yahoo.com

➢ If you have not given your life to Jesus Christ and are seeking answers about God, Jesus Christ, the gospel, and salvation, please email me at mab10666@yahoo.com for information.

➢ I am still taking questions for the Questions from the Body of Christ series. If you or someone you know has a question pertaining to the Word of God – theology, difficult passages, eschatology, etc. – I would really like to hear from you.

➢ A listing of past articles may be found at my Article Listings on Rapture Ready or my Home Page on FaithWriters.

As the Judeo-Christian ethic erodes in the world around us, the protection dome of the Holy Spirit is appreciated more and more each day. For it is easy to look at the news and despair. Newscasters and reporters exist on doom and gloom. When I was in news, the rule of thumb was, “If it bleeds, it leads.” Good news, unfortunately, doesn’t sell. It didn’t back in ‘my’ day, and it still doesn’t.

As I contemplated that, it came to me that that might be the reason why Christianity is under such siege, for it is the best of Good News, ever!

The powers that be – high elected officials, CEOs of social media, billionaires, and so on – do not want the news to be good. They are using climate change, the virus, and any crisis that comes along to promote fear and chaos in order to grab more and more power. As they increase their power, they erode ours by attempting to keep the average Joes (you and me) in constant fear.

Christian writer Francis Schaeffer, 40 years ago, envisioned what he called the arbitrary elites working very hard to bring about a New World Order. For their vision to come to pass, Christianity has to be first eroded, then done away with altogether to be supplanted by Marxism or some other ‘ism’ that is solely human both in concept and in scope.

Guess what? And this is part of the very Good News … The LORD God Almighty actually knew all this from the very first moment of the creation of the heavens and the earth. Isaiah 46:9-10, “I am God, and there is no other … I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand and I will do all that I please.'”

Oh yes, there will come a New World Order. Jesus, through the Apostle John in Revelation, has laid out exactly how this will come about, and we are beginning to see the first stages of it.

One huge benchmark of the Last Days will be something called the Mark of the Beast – a mark that is put on every person’s right hand or forehead. This mark will allow the people of the day to buy and sell, without which there will be no commerce allowed. If you take this mark, you are doomed forever, for it will mean you have become part of the ‘Beast’ system, a worshiper of the anti-Christ (Revelation 13:16).

As of now, we see this system being introduced in an experimental way. Those who have taken THE vaccine are going to be allowed freedom to travel and shop, while those who reject it will have those freedoms curtailed. Please understand that the vaccine is NOT the Mark of the Beast, but it is a precursor, probably for the powers that be, to see if it could work and how it could work. Heads up: those of us who are believers in Jesus Messiah and who are firmly entrenched in the Grace of God will not be on earth when the Mark is implemented.

Fear is a powerful motivator. But there is something infinitely more powerful that the “arbitrary elites” are overlooking – God’s Love and God’s Grace.

HYMN:

Jesus Paid It All

I hear the Saviour say thy strength indeed is small.

Child of weakness, watch and pray, find in Me thine all in all.

REFRAIN: Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe.

Sin had left a crimson stain; He washed it white as snow.

Lord, now indeed I find Thy power and thine alone

Can change the leper’s spots and melt the heart of stone.

REFRAIN

For nothing good, have I whereby Thy grace to claim;

I’ll wash my garments white in the blood of Calvary’s Lamb.

REFRAIN

And when before the throne I stand in Him complete,

Jesus died my soul to save, my lips shall still repeat.

REFRAIN

In my walk with the LORD, I have been very aware of Jesus’ command to us to stay firm in our faith until the end. Why does Jesus command us to stand strong in the face of adversity, to cling to Him until the end? If we have been saved, once and for all, why do Jesus and the writers of the Bible need to remind us to stand firm in our faith?

Well, the answer is that we are human beings. As we have seen in the COVID crisis, it is altogether too easy to get caught up in human emotion and let fear have sway over us. Even those who are saved in Jesus Christ can lose sight of Him, now and again.

Whenever I have been pulled off-center by temptation, the way back is a process of reaffirming my faith and asking for God’s Grace to create in me a pure heart. A perfect prayer, in times of fear, times we don’t feel close to Jesus, is found in Psalm 51, verses 10-13.

“Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from Your presence or take Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation and grant me a willing spirit to sustain me. Then I will teach transgressors your ways so that sinners will turn back to You.”

In this Psalm, David is asking not only for forgiveness for his sin of adultery with Bathsheba but also for Grace to restore him to a relationship with Almighty God.

You see, Grace is not automatically bestowed upon the human race, even though Jesus paid the sin debt for all of us. We do have a part to play. God has given us free will for a reason. And that reason is so that He can have a relationship with us. A relationship does not go one way.

Think, you who are parents, of your relationship with your children. If one of them decided one day they no longer wanted you in their life (God forbid), there is nothing you can do to force a relationship with them. You can call them, email them, even snail mail them. If they do not respond, there is no relationship. Now, being a loving parent, you would always stand ready to receive them back home. And though the LORD God yearns for us, He does not impose Himself on us. But as a loving Parent, He does stand ready with wide-open arms for anyone who asks for Mercy and Grace.

Obeying Jesus’ command to stay firm in our faith mitigates the risk of going sideways. And there are so many ways to go sideways, as is evidenced in the lives of Noah, Moses, Abraham, David, Simon Peter, Apostle Paul, and so on. Every one of these men of God “missed the mark” at some point. However, all were reconciled to Him upon repentance and renewal of their faith.

This is one reason why Christians need to band together, to come together in worship and fellowship, and to hear and study the Word of God, to stay strong together in their faith. You’ve heard the expression: strength in numbers? Consider this: if one Christian in the Grace of God can withstand much, imagine how much more a band of Christian believers, standing firm in the faith under the banner of the Grace of God, can withstand. That is ‘church,’ my friends. Jesus Himself instituted ‘church’ when He said, “And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it” (Matthew 16:18).

It is imperative for Christians not to abandon meeting together. Hebrews 10:23-25 advises strongly … “Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for He Who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another – and all the more as you see the day approaching.”

And which DAY would that be?

Each of us will have a day of reckoning with the LORD. Some of us may pass away and meet the LORD in heaven. But there is coming a day of Grace, when “… the LORD Himself will come down from heaven with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them to meet the LORD in the air. And so we will be with the LORD forever. Therefore, encourage one another with these words” (1 Thessalonians 4:16-18).

Question: Are you ready for this Day of Grace?

Ephesians 2:1-10

“As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, ² in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. ³ All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. 4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, ⁵ made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. ⁶ And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, ⁷ in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.

^“8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— ⁹ not by works, so that no one can boast. ¹⁰ For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

Apostle Paul’s letter to the Ephesians is a love letter of encouragement – good news for those who feel abandoned. He writes that we, who are being saved, are being adopted into God’s family through God’s gift of Grace through Jesus Messiah.

Paul writes that the Ephesians, and us by extension before we came to Christ, were dead in our sins. We followed the ways of the world. We were tempted with all the world has to offer, and many of us succumbed to the power of the devil. Actually, all of us are sinners. Every single one of the eight billion or so on planet Earth! And sinners are subject to the wages of sin which is death (Romans 6:23). “But,” verse 23 goes on, “the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our LORD.”

In Romans 5:8, we read that Jesus died on the cross for us while we were still in our sins. Our LORD paid the entire price of our redemption. “Paid in Full” is written on EVERYONE’s sin debt. But here’s the thing: Unless and until, by faith, we acknowledge our free gift of salvation, we will not see the richness of God’s mercy. An unopened gift is a gift unacknowledged.

We say, ‘Seeing is believing.’ But when it comes to faith, we need to believe first to see. That’s what faith is. Believing in something we cannot see. It doesn’t take any faith whatever to believe that we are currently sitting at a computer reading this. But it does take faith to believe that Jesus Christ was born of a virgin, suffered and died, was buried, rose again on the third day, and waits by the throne of God to come back to earth for us.

So now, with the eyes of faith, we can know that by His great love for us, as Paul says, God made us alive in Jesus. And it is solely by the gift of God’s Grace that we have been saved, through our faith … not by works, so that no one can boast (verse 9).

Someone told me lately that they believe that everyone is saved because “after we die, Jesus comes to us and offers eternal life, and who would turn it down? Right?” My dear friends, this teaching cannot be found anywhere in the Bible. It is, indeed, indicative of how New Age and other false teaching is infiltrating Christian doctrine. More on that another time.

The Bible teaches that we are called to admit we are sinners and need God’s forgiveness; to believe that Jesus Christ died for the forgiveness of our sins; and to turn from our sin and accept Christ as our personal Saviour and LORD of our life. We cannot do that when we are dead. I’m sorry if that seems offensive to someone. Many of us have lost loved ones whom we aren’t sure were saved, and it is beyond painful to think of someone we loved not being in heaven.

Some modern churches and preachers want to soften the blow, so to speak. But they do sinners no favors. There is no other way to the Father but through Jesus Christ, who said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6).

Faith in Jesus, in His life, death and resurrection, is what opens the door to saving Grace. There is no other way. There is no other way. As a pastor once told me, “I didn’t write the book. I don’t make the rules. I’m just the messenger.”

Friends, the truth is that when we turn from our sin and are born again in Jesus Christ, we are made new creatures in Him. And the LORD Jesus is, even now, preparing a place for us in His Father’s realm, that we might be near Him forever and ever. He is just waiting to shower on us His incomparable kindness and the riches of His Mercy and Grace.

Life is short. Life is uncertain. Eat dessert first! No, seriously, we might be Raptured at any moment. There is nothing left in prophecy to be fulfilled before the Rapture. Listen, any of us might go out on the street later today and be hit by a truck and killed. Again, God forbid. But I want to be ready for any eventuality. Don’t you?

For anyone who has not been saved in the Blood of the Lamb, and who wishes to know more about Jesus’ free gift of Salvation, please see the ABCs of Salvation at the end of this article. Time is short.

Eternity is long. Choose eternal life in Jesus Messiah!

Do it today.

Let us pray: LORD God, what a comfort it is to know that we are saved by Your Grace, that we are now alive in Your tender loving care because we believe on Your Son Jesus Christ. Father, we pray for all of our acquaintances who are not yet saved that they might open their spiritual eyes and see the One Who paid their sin-debt in full; that they might reach out to Him and claim their free gift of God’s Grace. Thank you, LORD, for loving us all so very much. In Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.

If anyone reading this devotional has not yet received Jesus as their Saviour, but God has touched your heart by His Holy Word, please email me (amadea649@gmail.com) or find a Bible-believing local church and ask the Pastor what you must do to be saved in Grace. In the meantime, please consider the ABCs of Salvation:

A – Admit

Admit what you have done wrong and ask forgiveness.

Romans 3:23 “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

Romans 6:23 “The wages of sin is death.”

1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”

B – Believe

Believe that Jesus died on the cross and rose again as payment for your sins.

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”

1 Corinthians 15:3-4 “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.”

Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates His own love for us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

C – Confess and Choose

Confess and choose to allow God to be in charge of your life.

Matthew 16:24 “Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.”

Romans 10:9 “If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

Romans 10:13 “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

This article, based on God’s Holy Word, was written by the inspiration of God’s own Holy Spirit. All glory to God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Blessings,

Lynda Janzen