When my nephew, Michael, was four years old, he asked his mother if he could call me. When we got on the telephone, he began to ask questions:
"Aunt Berta, you can use your one hand, right?"
"No, I can't use my one hand."
"Well, you can use the other hand can't you?"
"No Michael. I can't use my hands."
"Aunt Berta, when God heals you will you ride in my car?"
"Yes Michael. I will."
Then he asked, "Aunt Berta, did you have your accident a long, long time ago when I was a little bitty baby because I don't remember it?"
As I tried to explain to Michael that it happened before he was born, he couldn't understand. You see to him everything started when he was born and there was nothing before.
"Nothing before." It's that way with God. When you repent of your sins, die to self and give your life to Christ you are "born again" and God only sees your new self. Nothing before.
He has not dealt with us according to our sins, Nor punished us according to our iniquities. For as the heavens are high above the earth, So great is His mercy toward those who fear Him; As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us (Psalm 103:10-12).
Jesus died for you that you might have eternal life. Gone are the sins of your past. Your future is
"In Christ Alone."
Berta
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
A Story of Forgiveness
My father was abusive when I was growing up. When he died, I wasn’t going to attend his funeral but my husband, Earl, insisted I go. Before the service, I walked back and forth from a pew to Dad's open casket crying violently.
“Why didn't I ever tell him how much he hurt me!”
After his funeral, I felt purged of anger and hatred toward him.
I was wrong.
Thirteen years later Earl and I attended a marriage seminar called Steps to Setting Your Marriage Free in Christ (Neil T. Anderson). Going in, we each believed we had a good marital relationship. As we worked through the many issues raised, and as we prayed and asked God to show us the truth, we found ourselves discovering things about each other as well as identifying things within ourselves.
God revealed to me a lifetime of rage, anger, hurt and unforgiveness toward my earthly father. Until then I hadn’t realized how much Dad had harmed my emotions and my spirit. The tears came again, though not violently this time. They were cleansing, relieving, and Earl cried with me. We cried for how all my anger and hatred had tarnished our marriage for thirteen years. When I forgave Daddy that day I felt a peace I had never known before.
Often we don’t recognize the unforgiveness within us. We justify our attitudes. A part of making sure our life is clean and right before God has to do with forgiving other people.
Everything we do in life has eternal value that hinges on two things: loving God and loving others. It’s hard to forgive those who have hurt, offended, or mistreated us, but God wants us to love even our enemies and in the process of doing so He perfects us.
God wants you to move into all He has for you. But, if you don't forgive you're stuck where you are and shutting off God's work in your life. Forgiveness opens your heart and mind and allows the Holy Spirit to work freely in you. It releases you to love God more and feel His love in greater measure.
If you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive them their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses (Matthew 6:14-15).
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments (Matthew 22:37-40).
In Christ Alone,
Berta
“Why didn't I ever tell him how much he hurt me!”
After his funeral, I felt purged of anger and hatred toward him.
I was wrong.
Thirteen years later Earl and I attended a marriage seminar called Steps to Setting Your Marriage Free in Christ (Neil T. Anderson). Going in, we each believed we had a good marital relationship. As we worked through the many issues raised, and as we prayed and asked God to show us the truth, we found ourselves discovering things about each other as well as identifying things within ourselves.
God revealed to me a lifetime of rage, anger, hurt and unforgiveness toward my earthly father. Until then I hadn’t realized how much Dad had harmed my emotions and my spirit. The tears came again, though not violently this time. They were cleansing, relieving, and Earl cried with me. We cried for how all my anger and hatred had tarnished our marriage for thirteen years. When I forgave Daddy that day I felt a peace I had never known before.
Often we don’t recognize the unforgiveness within us. We justify our attitudes. A part of making sure our life is clean and right before God has to do with forgiving other people.
Everything we do in life has eternal value that hinges on two things: loving God and loving others. It’s hard to forgive those who have hurt, offended, or mistreated us, but God wants us to love even our enemies and in the process of doing so He perfects us.
God wants you to move into all He has for you. But, if you don't forgive you're stuck where you are and shutting off God's work in your life. Forgiveness opens your heart and mind and allows the Holy Spirit to work freely in you. It releases you to love God more and feel His love in greater measure.
If you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive them their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses (Matthew 6:14-15).
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments (Matthew 22:37-40).
In Christ Alone,
Berta
Thursday, September 15, 2011
No Condemnation
Arriving at my favorite bar one afternoon, I noticed the tiny place of business next door had poster-board signs in the window. “PRAYER ROOM for JESUS.” I laughed as I entered the bar, “Did you see the sign next door?” At first, we all thought it was a joke because the woman who owned the bar owned that space as well.
When the young men started coming into the bar we were shocked and the banter began. “Look at these freaks. They must be crazy thinking we’d buy their snake oil.”
One of the men got too close to John. Throwing an arm over the young man's shoulders, John said, “Hey let me buy you a beer?”
“Sir, I don’t need alcohol. I have something better.”
John gave him a push, “Just get out of here man. We don’t want any of that Bible stuff.”
We were cruel. Whoever saw one of them come in hollered, “Jesus!” And every other drunk responded, “Freak!” We continued the cadence as loud and proud as we could until we were bored with them and turned our attention back to our beer consumption, bar talk, and pool games.
Those young men stuck it out, unashamedly approaching each person as they strived to share Jesus with every one of us. Not just once but every day, several times a day, at all hours of the day and night.
I was swept up with the crowd, as were the Jews of the day who yelled, “Crucify Him!”
God never gave up on me. Just the opposite, He sent angels in the form of men and women to show me how great His love was for me.
I praise Him and thank him for saving me and for seeing me through Christ’s Blood. And having put away my past,* I’m living each day as a “Jesus Freak,” boldly testifying to His great love, mercy, grace, and forgiveness.
How could I do less?
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit (Romans 8:1-4 NRSV).
*Ephesians 4:21-25
In Christ Alone,
Berta
When the young men started coming into the bar we were shocked and the banter began. “Look at these freaks. They must be crazy thinking we’d buy their snake oil.”
One of the men got too close to John. Throwing an arm over the young man's shoulders, John said, “Hey let me buy you a beer?”
“Sir, I don’t need alcohol. I have something better.”
John gave him a push, “Just get out of here man. We don’t want any of that Bible stuff.”
We were cruel. Whoever saw one of them come in hollered, “Jesus!” And every other drunk responded, “Freak!” We continued the cadence as loud and proud as we could until we were bored with them and turned our attention back to our beer consumption, bar talk, and pool games.
Those young men stuck it out, unashamedly approaching each person as they strived to share Jesus with every one of us. Not just once but every day, several times a day, at all hours of the day and night.
I was swept up with the crowd, as were the Jews of the day who yelled, “Crucify Him!”
God never gave up on me. Just the opposite, He sent angels in the form of men and women to show me how great His love was for me.
I praise Him and thank him for saving me and for seeing me through Christ’s Blood. And having put away my past,* I’m living each day as a “Jesus Freak,” boldly testifying to His great love, mercy, grace, and forgiveness.
How could I do less?
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit (Romans 8:1-4 NRSV).
*Ephesians 4:21-25
In Christ Alone,
Berta
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