Today was the first full day of Faithwalkers 2008 and it was pretty wild. Honestly, my heart was a bit sluggish coming into it, but God gave it a bit of a tune up and its running quite a bit better.
There were a ton of awesome teachings, but the last one of the day had the biggest impact on me. Bill Young talked about forgiveness. He is probably the funniest pastor I have ever listened to, and I really appreciate that. It keeps me really engaged the whole time.
As with any good teaching, Bill shared a bunch of verses, but there were a couple that felt really super significant to me. One of the first verses was from 2 Peter 1. Basically from verses 5-8 it gives a list of qualities to increase in your faith (goodness, knowledge, self control...). Then verse 9 says that if you don't have those qualities listed you have forgotten about the forgiveness of God. This quickly pointed out to me the importance of understanding forgiveness in order to continue to grow spiritually, and Bill talked about this as well.
Colossians 3:13 says "Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you". We've all heard that before, but when I was reminded how God has forgiven me, choosing to remember my sin no more, I knew that there some people that I needed to forgive. Forgiveness that I have been holding back for more than a year. I struggled with not feeling like I could, but Bill Young laid it out pretty plainly that it doesn't matter how you are 'feeling', you need to forgive anyways. So after a bit of struggling, I gave it up. Even though nobody was asking me for forgiveness, I thought about how many times God must forgive me even though I have not asked for forgiveness after each offense. I said out loud to God "I forgive" and powerful sense of freedom filled me. Almost like a load off of my back.
I really see how forgiveness can be a hinderance to spiritual growth. I am so thankful for what God taught me today and changed in my heart today. Definitely listen to that message if you have a chance to. Just google faithwalkers and go to the messages for faithwalkers west 2008.
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Amen brother. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I appreciate what you expressed. It really shows me so much more how we can't just know the verses but we have to live our faith. Christianity is of no value if we just know about it but don't but it into action. Forgiveness is one of the things that takes most humility I think. It is especially hard to forgive without first telling the person we were hurt, which I think God calls us to do sometimes, to just forgive without somehow inflicting damage or even letting someone know. May we know God's forgiveness more!
ReplyDelete~Jesse