“The bridge of grace will bear your weight, brother. Thousands of big sinners have gone across that bridge, yea, tens of thousands have gone over it. Some have been the chief of sinners and some have come at the very last of their days but the arch has never yielded beneath their weight. I will go with them trusting to the same support. It will bear me over as it has for them.”
CH Spurgeon
Quite often many of us deal with guilt and condemnation. We live in sinful bodies, and it seems that we actually cherish things that God has told us are wrong, and not part of an authentic Christian walk.
We’ve got an enemy that condemns and accuses. Our sin can be compared to “hooks” that Satan can latch on and pull us toward dark things. I personally don’t believe that a Christian can be demon-possessed. The Holy Spirit resides in the believer–He protects us with His presence.
The believer can be oppressed but never possessed.
Life can be very challenging when we choose sin over holiness. Often we really don’t have a fear of God. A healthy believer knows that he or she will stand and give an account of the way we live. Rewards will be given, and judgment will be passed on all that we’ve done.
When God saves a person He really does save a person.
We need not feel condemnation or guilt, Jesus was punished for our sin. His poured out blood is sufficient for everyone. He died so we won’t. He was risen to give us power over all of these nasty dark things. He becomes the bridge that holds our weight.
Be encouraged saint, as His holiness is given to each of us. We must choose it.
“Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven;”
Luke 6:37
“Pray don’t find fault with the man who limps Or stumbles along the road Unless you have worn the shoes that hurt Or struggled beneath his load There may be tacks in his shoes that hurt, Though hidden away from view Or the burden he bears, placed on your back, Might cause you to stumble, too.”
“Don’t sneer at the man who’s down today Unless you have felt the blow That caused his fall, or felt the same That only the fallen know. You may be strong, but still the blows That were his, if dealt to you In the self same way at the self same time, Might cause you to stagger, too.”
“Don’t be too harsh with the man who sins Or pelt him with words or stones, Unless you are sure, yea, doubly sure, That you have no sins of your own. For you know perhaps, if the tempters voice Should whisper as soft to you As it did to him when he went astray, ‘Twould cause you to falter, too.”
By St.Georgy
“Judging others and being quick to criticize just pollutes your life. Learning how to open your hand is the best thing you can possibly learn.”
Sometimes we’ve got a hard time forgiving ourselves for our sin.
Ironically though, the Lord has a hard time remembering them. Obviously, He isn’t becoming senile on us. He chooses to become “forgetful.” We’re told repeatedly that he has completely forgot and forgiven all of our darkest evils, and twisted agendas.
“He will again have compassion on us; he will vanquish our iniquities. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.”
Micah 7:9
Once we turn away from those very dark things, we find that the true God is patiently waiting. We discover that his arms are wide open, and he’s running down the path to meet us (Luke 15:20-21.)
There is something noteworthy and special about a forgiven sinner.
In a deep sense we have been altered. We have become a new creation (that word can easily be translated as “species.”) Something tangible has happened, an alteration has taken place. We’re something completely new and totally different–a forgiven believer now exists! “If anyone belongs to Christ, he is a new creation. The old things have gone; everything is made new!” (2 Cor. 5:17)
By our faith in Christ’s death, we discover that the power of our sin has been shattered.
And for the first time, we have the ability to say “no!” We can now turn and go the other direction. We can walk in such a freedom and awareness of being loved, that it really easy to let Him change us from the inside out. Like the prodigal, we must turn our backs on the pigs, and go home (Luke 15:16-17.)
“For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.”
“Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.”
Ephesians 4:32, NLT
Great hearts are often brought through experiences that demand intense forgiving.
The Father tutors us through out our earthly lives, with many visits to this classroom. It’s here we get our learning. It will happen several times in our walk, and we carry different nuances, or slants. Each time we are required to forgive authentically. The course is set for us. We can’t choose to skip these lessons without injuring ourselves, and harming others.
We are learning to love– it is our calling and destiny. There are no “accidents” or misaligned ‘drop-outs’ here. We step into our classroom, and the Teacher and Comforter begins His instruction. Many things will strike you as diabolical. Deep inside us we have simply no idea of how “this” will turn out for good. And you’d be right. But the power of God steps in, and “all is well”.
Corrie ten Boom– Writer, speaker, Christian
Corrie Ten Boom was a Dutch Christian.
After her release from a Nazi concentration camp, she began traveling the world and speaking to any who would have her. The needs of postwar Europe were desperate. She traveled as an evangelist telling people who Jesus is and spoke about His redemption. She gave many people hope.
Through her travels she came in contact with a few of the guards that had been a part of the Nazi regime and had to practice forgiveness that only Jesus can bring. The first encounter with one of her previous jailers proved to be most difficult.
Here is an excerpt from her book, “The Hiding Place”.
“It was a church service in Munich that I saw him, the former S.S. man who had stood guard at the shower room door in the processing center at Ravensbruck. He was the first of our actual jailers that I had seen since that time. And suddenly it was all there – the roomful of mocking men, the heaps of clothing, Betsie’s pain-blanched face.
He came up to me as the church was emptying, beaming and bowing. “How grateful I am for your message, Fraulein,” he said. “To think that, as you say, He has washed my sins away!” His hand was thrust out to shake mine. And I, who had preached so often to the people in Bloemendaal the need to forgive, kept my hand at my side.
Even as the angry, vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them. Jesus Christ had died for this man; was I going to ask for more? Lord Jesus, I prayed, forgive me and help me to forgive him.
I tried to smile, I struggled to raise my hand. I could not. I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of warmth or charity. And so again I breathed a silent prayer. Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me Your forgiveness.
She then took his hand and the most incredible thing happened.
From my shoulder along my arm and through my hand a current seemed to pass from me to him, while into my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me.
And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world’s healing hinges, but on His. When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself.”
Corrie’s Wisdom for Us
There is no pit so deep, that God’s love is not deeper still.
Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart.
It is not my ability, but my response to God’s ability, that counts.
When a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don’t throw away the ticket and jump off. You sit still and trust the engineer.
Faith is like radar that sees through the fog-the reality of things at a distance that the human eye cannot see.
Trying to do the Lord’s work in your own strength is the most confusing, exhausting, and tedious of all work. But when you are filled with the Holy Spirit, then the ministry of Jesus just flows out of you.
For her efforts to hide Jews from arrest and deportation during the German occupation of the Netherlands, Corrie ten Boom (1892-1983) received recognition from the Yad Vashem Remembrance Authority as one of the “Righteous Among the Nations” on December 12, 1967.
