I Choose to Forgive

"God didn’t make you with the capacity to carry all the negative residue from your past. He doesn’t expect you to store it or ignore it. We call it emotional baggage, but parts of our past are really more like toxic trash or radioactive waste. Forgiveness is what God gives to free us and others from the weight of relational failure. If we want the kind of life that God promises us, forgiveness is God’s solution. Pastor James tells us today how to become experts at forgiveness."

Click here to listen to todays broadcast from Walk in the Word. It will only be up for today, tomorrow there will be a new one so go ahead and take a few minuets to listen. You won't be sorry.

Let me share a part of what he said... "Jesus came into the world to pay a debt He did now owe because we owe a debt we could not pay!"

Trust me, you need to hear this message.

When God prompts you to speak...

Beka sent out an email with this recent story of hers.

She said I could when i asked her if i could share it with you all. I hope it encourages you like it did me to share the Lord with those you come in contact with! Even if you think there's not enough time.



Beka's Story:

"I flew home from Michigan yesterday with my sister and niece and I sat next to this man, but i didn't really talk to him or introduce myself because i was helping Debby watch Chloe. Then, i fell asleep and then when i woke up, he was asleep. And THEN things got interesting...

I had to go to the bathroom so i stood up just in time to see and old lady whip into the back bathroom and then i turned around and another lady jumped into the other one...and i was like "...weird..." so started to move to go stand in line anyway and i think 1 or 2 more people got up and went and stood in line, and then the guy next to me woke up. So i sat down and started talking to him about who he was, his family, what he did, where he's been (you know...surface level stuff) and all the time I'm feeling more and more pressure to share the gospel with him.

Suddenly, the seat belt light comes on and we're in Orlando and we start our descent and i thought to myself: there's NO way i have time God, sorry.

Then, the conversation came to a complete halt and he just kinda stared straight ahead and it was awkward and so finally i was like fine...I'm not gonna get through it, but I'll do it anyway...

I spoke up with trepidation: "Sir, with all the places you've been and the people you've known, and the things you've seen...has anybody ever told you how much God loves you?"

And he turns to me and says..."it's funny you should ask...it's something I've thought about, but I'm just not really sure...my parents are latter day saints...my wife is catholic...and I'm just...open."

I figured since i wasn't going to get through it all anyway, I'd take my time and really get to know what his thoughts were, with hopes of establishing that i did care where he was coming from so if we didn't get a chance to finish i would have at least provoked his thoughts some and perhaps opened an opportunity to talk more at some future point.

So i asked him several questions and we talked all about whether he thought he'd go to heaven when he died; Who he thought Jesus Christ was; and What he believed about the Bible. With that grounds I got to go through a super clear, scripture-by-scripture presentation of the gospel. (Surprising myself regularly that at each point we still hadn't hit the ground and I wasn't out of time yet.) I asked him if it made sense and he told me it did.

Then, I wondered if he'd heard that before and he said: "Not that way...the religious influences in my life have presented something like that with...a tweak..." We talked about how different religions tend to be very similar in that they're works-based in one way or another; man is always striving to be good enough, to work his way to God; and how the message the Bible teaches is different. It's based completely on God's grace extended to us in our undeserving state, which was necessary if we were to be together with him for eternity (or at all), because there is no way we could possibly be good enough in and of our own efforts. I encouraged him not to just take my word for it but to read through John and see for himself: the condition that's put out there again and again is just "believe."

As he thanked me for telling him, we landed.

Then, people got up and crowded the pathway right in front of his seat so he couldn't move for another 10 minutes...so I took the time to recap and share that he could make that decision to believe right now and that 1 John talks about how we can know that we have eternal life with that decision-it's never something he has to wonder about.

As the aisle continued to clog, I told him that he would not just be stepping into eternal security but a fulfilling relationship with the creator of the universe who loves him more than words can describe and who gave all there was to give to have that closeness with him.

The man told me that i was certainly passionate about it and i told him that it's the one thing on this earth really worth being passionate about; it is the one thing you can cling to when everything else fails; it is the one thing you can be sure of in a world of uncertainty and deceit; and it is the one thing that you will have missed your entire point and purpose in living if you bypass.

Then: the aisle cleared up and He thanked me again for talking to him and told me I could be praying for him when I asked and I thanked him for being so open and sharing with me and we parted ways.

He got up and left, and as I gathered my things i was thinking to myself...How in the world did I fit all that in? Was I just talking really fast? There's no way the descent lasted that long....and as I was thinking these things...

I heard my sister apologizing to her husband on the phone for being so late. I tuned in just in time to hear her say:
"Yeah...I'm really sorry! We'll be out in baggage claim in about 15 minutes...We've been in Orlando, but the plane has been circling the airport for no apparent reason for the last half hour..."

...I decided I should be more prompt when God tells me to talk to people...haha"

Beka

Look at his smile!

Today is a beautiful day!

A warm 50 degrees and sunny. We have a wonderfully fresh breeze blowing through our windows.

You might remember this post about how Elijah was praying for a bike of his own.

Would you like to see the answer to that prayer?


Pat and Ruth found this bike in their garage when they moved in last autumn. It sat there until they heard of Elijah's wish. And then they brought it over for him and he has been "working" with his new bike for the last two days!

So today he decided he was going to wash his bike...

He loves the basket on the front. It's perfect for loading treasures like rocks and bottles of bubbles.

Elijah got to see how God some times works through people to answer prayer.

It's amazing to see how God takes care of even little boy's prayers. He cares about the small things too!

A Little Boy's Prayer

We were sitting there in church last Sunday evening. Elijah was between Geoff and I and Ethan in his seat on the end. Elijah has been doing great at sitting still and being quiet in church so I was surprised to hear him start to whisper during one of Rev. Smylie's prayers! I look over to quiet him and realize that he's actually praying! His head was tipped back and his eyes were all scrunched closed. Then it registers what he's asking God for... "please, give me a bike!"

My heart melted.

You see, we had talked about this during the week. Elijah had said he wanted a bike and I told him to pray and ask God for one.

The next day he came up to me and said very matter of factly, "God didn't give me a bike. You get me one." =) When he prays he expects an answer right away!

So when I heard his first, unprompted, from the heart prayer in church it melted my heart. I'd be interested to see to see what he does if he really does get a bike. Will he remember his prayer and thank God?

The little man's got faith. He told me that "God's gonna give me a bike."

It's funny the things people think about prayer and how it relates to God. Some treat it like a guinea in a bottle, asking for things and expecting God to give them what ever they want. Some treat it like a duty. If they don't pray a certain amount every day God's going to get them!

I don't have it all figured out either. Like the more people who pray for some thing or some one does that get God's attention more/faster than if only one person were praying for it? God already knows the out come. He's already there in the future at the end of it all. What exactly is prayer?

I used to think that once we prayed for some thing that God heard us so there was no need to keep praying and asking God for the same thing over and over. I feel that way with my son, if he asked me to do some thing, he doesn't need to keep asking and asking, it just gets annoying. But I don't think God is like that. And I don't think that way anymore.

I was reading Spurgeon's Morning and Evening Devotional and he was talking about Exodus 17:12 where Joshua was fighting a battle and Moses was up on the mountain all day holding up his hand and rod and prayed. He was up there and he kept on praying for victory in the battle ALL DAY!

Here's the whole reading: "And his hands were steady until the going down of the sun." --Exodus 17:12 So mighty was the prayer of Moses, that all depended upon it. The petitions of Moses discomfited the enemy more than the fighting of Joshua. Yet both were needed. No, in the soul's conflict, force and fervour, decision and devotion, valour and vehemence, must join their forces, and all will be well. You must wrestle with your sin, but the major part of the wrestling must be done alone in private with God. Prayer, like Moses', holds up the token of the covenant before the Lord. The rod was the emblem of God's working with Moses, the symbol of God's government in Israel. Learn, O pleading saint, to hold up the promise and the oath of God before Him. The Lord cannot deny His own declarations. Hold up the rod of promise, and have what you will. Moses grew weary, and then his friends assisted him. When at any time your prayer flags, let faith support one hand, and let holy hope uplift the other, and prayer seating itself upon the stone of Israel, the rock of our salvation, will persevere and prevail. Beware of faintness in devotion; if Moses felt it, who can escape? It is far easier to fight with sin in public, than to pray against it in private. It is remarked that Joshua never grew weary in the fighting, but Moses did grow weary in the praying; the more spiritual an exercise, the more difficult it is for flesh and blood to maintain it. Let us cry, then, for special strength, and may the Spirit of God, who helpeth our infirmities, as He allowed help to Moses, enable us like him to continue with our hands steady "until the going down of the sun;" till the evening of life is over; till we shall come to the rising of a better sun in the land where prayer is swallowed up in praise. "

That last sentence really stuck with me too.

What are your thoughts on prayer?