We Have a Forgiving God
One of the hardest things to fathom for a human mind is that God loves us and is merciful to us even when we are our worst:
God makes everything come out right; he puts victims back on their feet. He showed Moses how he went about his work, opened up his plans to all Israel. God is sheer mercy and grace; not easily angered, he’s rich in love. He doesn’t endlessly nag and scold, nor hold grudges forever. He doesn’t treat us as our sins deserve, nor pay us back in full for our wrongs. As high as heaven is over the earth, so strong is his love to those who fear him. And as far as sunrise is from sunset, he has separated us from our sins. As parents feel for their children, God feels for those who fear him. Psalm 103:13a (MSG)
All of us make mistakes and according to Romans 3:23 we all sin. If justice were to prevail we are all deserving of hell. Yet, God in His mercy sent Jesus to be the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only but for the sins of the whole world. Right now our world is going through so much pain and turmoil. The divides seemingly multiply every day. Racial, political, gender confusion, economic, cultural, and certainly religious divides. If ever there was a time in human history when we need help from on high, it is now.
Fortunately, God wants us to want HIm. He wants us to come to Him and repent of our sins, our failures, our helplessness. There is no real sustaining help outside of Him. He wants us to allow Him to do a work in us and through us that can not only change our lives, but change the world around us. We as the church of the Lord Jesus Christ must grab hold of the "faith that was once delivered unto the saints" and believe God CAN and God WILL move on our behalf.
Pastor Doug Neal of Christian Life Center South Bend preached a message Sunday that spoke of the chaos we find in Genesis 1; yet God got to work and in the midst of the chaos, He saw:
the earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. Genesis 1:2 (NLT)
That same God is hovering over our chaos today. He wants to separate the darkness from the light; He wants to separate the waters of the heavens from the waters of the earth. He wants to change the hardened hearts of those who don’t believe into a tender heart that hopes all things and believes all things. God spoke it into being at the beginning, He has now given us dominion to speak – let us speak the Word of faith. These dry bones can live!
Maria,