Devotional Song: … GO TO THIS LINK … Please take the time to take in a YouTube video of Laura Story singing her song … Grace Abounds … and THEN TO THIS LINK to hear a YouTube explanation by the songwriter about how/why she wrote the song.
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Highlight Verse[s]: Matthew 18:26-27 … [NLT] …
21 Then Peter came to him and asked, “Lord, how often should I forgive someone who sins against me? Seven times?” 22 “No, not seven times,” Jesus replied, “but seventy times seven!
… Jesus tells Peter that our forgiveness should be like His of us … i.e., forever forgiveness.
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Highlight Passage [context]: Matthew 18:21-35 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK …
… Jesus parable in response to Peter asking the Lord how often we should forgive one who’s sinned against us.
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Reference Passage #1 [NKJV] : … Colossians 3:12-15 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK …
… Paul on how we should live to reflect Christliness in our lives. Especially meditate on Verse 13.
My Devotional Journal: Today's ODB author, Xochitl Dixon, used a personal story to teach on how difficult it is to break free from our own selfish desires and forgive someone who has wronged us or to forgive someone who has wronged others in our world. The ODB author wrote: I arrived early at my church to help set up for an event. A woman stood crying at the opposite end of the sanctuary. She’d been cruel and gossiped about me in the past, so I quickly drowned out her sobs with a vacuum cleaner. Why should I care about someone who didn’t like me?
When the Holy Spirit reminded me how much God had forgiven me, I crossed the room. The woman shared that her baby had been in the hospital for months. We cried, embraced, and prayed for her daughter. After working through our differences, we’re now good friends.
Wow, … it can be so, so difficult at times to forgive others the way Jesus has forgiven us sinners, can’t it? But as Laura Story sings in her poignant song, linked above, God’s grace does abound in our hears to do what the ODB author did in her testimony above.
These days we see so many things where people are being hostile to other people; and we even experience that personally at times. But as Jesus related to Peter when His Disciple asked how often we should forgive others [see highlight passage], the Lord’s parable spoke to the reality that our willingness to forgive should be forever and always .
Too often I find myself in a “coulda-shoulda-woulda” attitude when I have the opportunity to forgive someone; … but then, due to pride or selfishness, I don’t. Perhaps you’ve got that T-shirt too. Well, how about we pray to let God give us His grace to reach out with our willingness to forgive … just like Jesus was willing to forgive us?
My Prayer Today: Heavenly Father, … dear Lord, … Give me the grace to forgive the very next person You show me I should when I’m given Your opportunity to show Your love/mercy to others. … Amen
Blogger Note: Everyday during this year, my daily devotional blogs are influenced by the reading and study of the online devotional blog entitled Our Daily Bread, distributed online via email by RBC Ministries. If you GO TO THIS LINK on the date of my blog, you can read/study the ODB blogs; or you can subscribe to the blog via email at that site.
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