Love is Living 4

25th February 2021 Thank God for today, it’s another lovely Thursday and we thank God for what he’s doing in our lives. We’re still talking about love and the fact that Love is Living. When we allow the Person of love live in us and we allow Him flow through us, that is what love is living is all about, it is allowing love flow from the inside of us to our neighbours, to our friends, to those around us and even to our enemies. It is by doing this that we see the power of love and the ability of love to change lives begin to really be unleashed. Yesterday we spoke about the fact that love is giving today we want to talk about the forgiving dimension of love. Love is not just giving, Love is Forgiving. True love forgives people and we must learn to forgive people. In what we popularly call the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus taught us to pray “…forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us…” From time to time we will offend ourselves, from time to time we’ll do wrong, maybe knowingly, sometimes unknowingly, but we must make it a point of duty to forgive people. You know what Jesus said? If you don’t forgive others, neither will you receive forgiveness. (Matt.6:15) One of my mentors told me many years ago about a lesson he learnt from his own mentors, he called it the law of advance forgiveness, and what is the law of advanced forgiveness? It is the ability to think of the worst thing a person can to you and you think of how you’d respond. If yours response is not consistent with that of love and forgiveness, re-condition yourself, simulate that situation to the point where you can respond with forgiveness. That’s what the law of advanced forgiveness is all about. Forgiveness can be difficult, sometimes very painful, but if we really want to live in love we must forgive. You remember the story of the lost son in Luke chapter 15, he came to his father after he had messed up everything and with everything he did, the father still forgave him. Again, there’s a story in John chapter 8, the story of the woman that was caught in adultery. John 8:10-11(NLT) They brought this woman to Jesus, she was caught in adultery, according to them in the very act and Law of Moses says she should be stoned to death. They asked Jesus, “What would you say we should do to her?” Jesus said to them “The person that has no sin let him throw the first stone.” All of us have sinned in one way or the other, we are just enjoying the grace and mercy of God. Obviously, none of them could stone her. Jesus Who had the right to stone her because He was without sin did stone her too, instead He asked her a question, “Woman, where are your accusers, is there nobody condemning you?” She said “No one Lord”. Jesus said “Neither do I condemn you, go and don’t sin again”. Jesus said, I didn’t come into the world to condemn people but to save them. And just as it is important to forgive people, we must also learn to forgive yourselves. Some of us are so hard on ourselves and we don’t forgive ourselves. Understand this, you’re human and sometimes you miss it and sin. Whatever it is, confess the sin before God, make peace with the person you have offended and leave the matter under the cleansing power of the blood of Jesus. Feeling bad about it, punishing yourself for your past wrong and refusing to forgive yourself might make you feel you are “atoning for your sin” unfortunately your atonement by your works and feeling are not acceptable, only the finished work by the blood of Jesus. Once you have confessed it let it go and don’t stay under the burden of guilt and condemnation. Let the blood of Jesus be enough for you to forgive others and to forgive yourself, this is one of the was to live out love. God bless you, enjoy your day.