Thursday, September 3, 2020
Red Sunset
Beauty
Like Joy, Kindness, and Forgiveness,
It’s always there for us.
Proverbs 12:25
Anxiety weighs down the human heart, but a good word cheers it up.
Ephesians 4:32
Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.
Words of Grace For Today
The obvious is obvious. Anxiety is a weight on the human heart. Good words cheer the heart and lighten it.
Life is easier and more wonderful for those who are kind to one another, tender-hearted, and forgiving of one another.
We can only be kind, tender-hearted and forgiving because God has first forgiven us.
The question is, can we simply choose to be cheery with good words, instead of anxious? Can we be kind, tender-hearted, and forgiving by simply choosing to so be?
Were it so simple.
Like wishing that the rain would come in time of drought, or cease in time of flood, our wishing can hardly change reality.
Except, forgiving others and accepting forgiveness from them, certainly does change our lives, and for the better. Forgiving is something we can choose to do. It is not a mysterious thing to do. We simply give the person we are forgiving all treatment and response just as before the offence. Then we simply give that person a gift, something the person actually desires. Giving changes our heart, and our minds, and we become the one who has forgiven.
Not a mystery at all.
It is a thing we can do: to choose to do the things of forgiveness.
There is so much that we allow to get in the way.
Of course when we do not forgive, then our hearts harden and hate festers and we destroy more than the sin that we are offended by.
The devil does easily run amok in us, if we do not actively choose to be forgivers.
That choice though is still impossible for us, unless we confess our own sins and accept God’s precious and expensive forgiveness for our sins.
When we have confessed our desperate need to be forgiven and God’s generosity in forgiving us, then forgiving others flows with ease from us.
It is then rather simple, if one is humble, and impossible if one is proud.
Which shall we be found to be this day?