Theme for this week: “Forgiveness”
January 10, 2022 (Monday)
I’ve been thinking about the fact that the whole year (minus 10 days) is still ahead of us as of today. Still time to write about what may be important as we prepare for the rest of the year 2022.
It seems to me that this week could be a good time for us to think about our relationships. We can have a better year if we get a new start, free from misunderstandings, anger, bitterness, unforgiveness and anything that seems related to darkness and evil. We may need a clean slate, a new beginning.
Jesus spoke much about forgiveness. Is there someone you should forgive? Or someone who should forgive you? We need to have healed relationships if we are to be happy.
Before we can talk about forgiveness between people, we need to know for sure that we have confessed our sins and asked the Lord for forgiveness.
Fortunately for us, God loves us all and has made a way possible for us to have all our sins forgiven. God loved us so much he gave his only son to bear the penalty for our sins and die in our place on a cross. “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:17 NIV).
“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand” (Romans 5:1 NIV).
If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved” (Romans 10:9-10 NIV).
An old song about strengthening our faith says, “Praise God, the doubts are settled, and I know, I know it’s real!”
Fanny Crosby encouraged us to have “blessed assurance.” It gives us a foretaste of glory divine.
BLESSED ASSURANCE
Words, Frances J. Crosby
Music, Phoebe P. Knapp
1873
Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!
Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine!
Heir of salvation, purchase of God,
Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long;
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long.
Perfect submission, perfect delight,
Visions of rapture now burst on my sight;
Angels, descending, bring from above
Echoes of mercy, whispers of love.
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long;
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long.
Perfect submission, all is at rest,
I in my Savior am happy and blest,
Watching and waiting, looking above,
Filled with His goodness, lost in His love.
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long;
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long.
Our assurance of salvation leads us to say with Paul, “I know whom I have believed.” My sins are forgiven and want to walk closely with God. If that’s the way we feel today, then we are ready to talk about forgiveness between others and ourselves. And that will be the subject for the other blogs this week.