Forgiveness, Life and Goodness: 11/25/09

I haven’t had a blog post in a while.  But God has blessed me so much and has taught me so much during the past weeks.  I just praise God because He never gives up on me.  I can be pretty stubborn, I admit. Haha.

Starting today, I’m going to try to blog about what I read during my quiet time, especially the verses that popped out while I’m reading.  My posts will not be as long as my past posts but it’s all about quality not quantity.  And God’s Word is the is priceless.

• Luke 17:1-10 – In this passage, Jesus was talking about forgiveness and faith.  Right before verses 3 and 4, Jesus was saying how it’s not good to lead other people to sin or to abuse people, especially children.  Then He says:
• “So watch yourselves.  If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him.  If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says ‘I repent,’ forgive him.” (vv3-4)
• This is such an interesting passage because I’ve seen this disobeyed a lot of times, by me and by other people.  In our circle of influences, we are accountable for our brothers and sisters and Christ.  Rebuking doesn’t mean beat the other person up because he’s imperfect, but it means bring to his or her attention the sin that you see and then restore and encourage that person in the Lord. We’ve seen Jesus do this a lot of times during His ministry on earth.  Sure, He rebuked a lot of people, but His purpose and goal was always to restore them back to God, not to break them and leave them torn into pieces.

 

• Psalm 34 – David’s psalm when he pretended to be insane before Abimelech (when he was running away from King Saul, I believe)
• “Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him.” (v8)
• It’s just always awesome to be reminded of God’s goodness every single day.  It encourages us to live daily with joy and peace in our hearts.  To live and influence other people with that joy and God’s love and goodness.

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