Notes from this week's podcast: Love. Joy. Forgive.
Love. Joy. Forgive. These are powerful Biblical concepts.
When I see Jesus' humility as He walked here on earth, I see my prideful self. Every day I have to get on the altar and cleanse my heart of pride. When I see Jesus' humility, it makes me want to humble myself before God.
Andrew Murray says: One of the first things that Jesus did for us was to forgive us of our sins, and in doing so, He considered it a joy. Because Jesus considered it a joy to forgive us of our sins, that Jesus would want us to join Him, to participate in that -- that we might forgive others and consider It a joy in our lives to do it.
- Through forgiving (an act of the heart), it was a joy for Jesus to do what He did -- to forgive us of our sins -- all because He loved us. It was out of love.
It was a joy for Jesus to go to the cross because it was an act of forgiveness that He stepped into, on our behalf. He was willing to be afflicted, to pay that price for your sins and my sins so that we would be forgiven of our sins.
At the same time, He saw how wicked we are -- how selfish, how prideful, how fleshly we are. He had joy to forgive us. He was ready to continue to forgive us because He loves us.
We too can participate in that. We can join Him in that and do it.
What does Jesus want us to do? Line up with Him, His ways, His focus. Live with a joyful life. He's called us to join Him in that work.
He conquered His enemies. You can conquer them by joining Jesus -- by forgiving. Consider it a joy to do that. In His humility, He desires for us to walk the same way. Having our joy restored, it shows the world around us what love is. Isn't the world longing to see a people who just truly love?
In His love, He forgave us. In that forgiveness, it was absolute joy.
If we abide in Christ, Christ abides in us. We can go all in. Because we can show the world how much we love God.
What holds us back? Jesus invites us to participate.
Who do you need to forgive?
By choosing not to forgive, it has stolen your joy. Instead you patch the circumstance with happiness -- to smooth over relationships and unforgiving heart.
Maybe it's unforgiveness toward God...toward some person...toward yourself.
* Take your eyes off the person, off the situation. See Jesus on the cross, willing to forgive, and looking forward to the joy that was set before Him.
* Remember when you were first saved.
Embrace a discipleship journey and learn how to maintain this joy. Fall more in love with God -- love by obeying God's will and Word.
We can lose joy by settling into the ways of the world. When we recognize there's no joy, we spend our time trying to fix things, manipulate situations so that we have a happy life. God wants joy for us in spite of what touches our lives.
Jesus showed the world the love He had for us on the cross. Through forgiveness, you come back to God, you come back to a right relationship with family and friends. You're motivated to have that joy restored in your life. Desire to join Him in forgiving others, forgiving yourself. (even if they don't recognize it) Have your joy restored, not just patching with happiness.
To be blessed = We choose to allow God through the Holy Spirit to come into our heart to intervene into the situation and put Himself on it and join Him and He becomes exactly what we need and who we are -- then we are blessed. Then we show the world what a blessed life looks like -- it's all about God's love.
My prayer is that we ...
- join Jesus in this gracious work and choose to forgive -- forgive them, forgive ourselves when we have messed up -- and participate in what Jesus did and consider it a joy.
- walk in love. Love ourselves, Love others. Love God.
- continue to walk in His ways so that the joy of God will spill out through our lives because there is true forgiveness in the heart and that joy will be our strength from day to day to day.
Resource: Humility by Andrew Murray
Scripture for further study: Romans 5:8, Nehemiah 8:10, Matthew 6:12,15, Hebrews 12:2, Psalm 32:1-2
