Secure Relationship: Forgiveness
Devotions this week based on the Message: “Hope Comes with Secure Relationships”.
Everyone needs forgiveness.
Everyone.
But here’s the challenge:
- I know everyone needs forgiveness, but I’m not willing to forgive the people that wronged me.
- I know everyone needs forgiveness…but hesitate to admit I do.
Our own pride gets in the way of our relationship with others. Even in our marriages, we want our spouse to forgive us and move on, but when we are wronged, we are more willing to remember and bring up the wrong at an appropriate time. We know how amazing it is when our spouse forgives us for wrong that we have done, yet we forget to return the gift when we are wronged.
Perhaps its because we struggle in our own hearts to recognize and admit our sin.
The Apostle John was inspired by God’s Spirit to write this truth:
1 John 1:8 If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
Everyone needs forgiveness because everyone is sinful. Everyone. You and me included.
Sin breaks the security of a relationship between us and God and us and others. Yet forgiveness is a powerful restoring act that God is willing to give to us. John continues in verse 9.
1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
Forgiveness is given for EVERY sin.
Every one.
The life, death and resurrection of Jesus has been applied to your account as a gift of God’s grace. God willingly gave up the right to punish you for your sins by punishing Jesus for us. As a result, we are credited with the perfection Jesus obtained and the payment Jesus gave on the cross. God no longer treats us as our sins deserve.
So we don’t have to treat others as their sin deserves.
Consider this,
1 John 2:2 Jesus Christ, the Righteous One is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.
If Jesus did this for the world, he did it for me. If he did it for me, I can pass that on to others.
When we realize God’s full and complete forgiveness, we can, with God’s help, forgive as we have been forgiven.
Everyone?
Everyone.
Apply: Is there someone who has wronged you in your life? Ask the Lord for power to forgive that person. (Remember forgiving doesn’t mean you will not remember the act, or that the relationship returns to normal…it does mean you give up the right to get even, removing the barrier that sin caused in your relationship. God willing, the relationship can be made secure once again.)
Prayer: Father, forgive us for all our sins. Every one of them. Amen.
Well everyone needs compassion
A love that’s never failing
Let mercy fall on me
Everyone needs forgiveness
The kindness of a Savior
The hope of nations
Savior, he can move the mountains
My God is mighty to save
He is mighty to save
Forever author of Salvation
He rose and conquered the grave
Jesus conquered the grave
Hillsong “Mighty to Save”
Secure Relationships: Honesty
Devotions this week based on the Message: “Hope Comes with Secure Relationships”.
“I’m telling you the honest truth.”
“Let me be honest with you…”
“Honestly, it’s the best I have to offer.”
Only…when it’s not.
Don’t you hate that when someone tells you the “honest truth” only to find out it’s an honest lie? “Honesty is the best policy,” but we don’t always encounter people who are honest. It breaks trust and certainly doesn’t build a secure relationship.
Jesus said, “But I tell you, Do not swear at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; 35 or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. 36 And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. 37 Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one (Matthew 5:34-37).”
Jesus teaching on swearing reminds us to build a character of honesty. If we have to swear to validate what we are saying, it probably means we have a deeper problem…we often don’t tell the truth. If we regularly practice honesty in our relationships, people will trust our “Yes” or “No” as the honest truth.
We live in a culture of media and interactions that are willing to twist the truth to fit a narrative. Snippets of information fail to communicate the whole story, thus concealing the truth. We can’t fix all of that in one devotion, but God wants to work on our hearts. So let’s let him. Here’s three ways to provide honesty in your relationships.
First, find your source of truth in God and his Word. So much around us fails to pass the truth test. The only way to know the truth is go to the source of all truth. Titus 1:2 reminds us that God will never lie to us: “…a faith and knowledge resting on the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time,…”
Second, be honest with yourself. John wrote in 1 John 1:8 “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.” We must allow God’s truth to first work in our own hearts and lives. Remember Satan is the Father of Lies and loves to deceive us into believing lies as truth, starting in our own hearts.
Third, speak the truth in love. The Apostle Paul writes, “Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ (Ephesians 4:15) We speak the truth with a heart of love and a goal for people to see Jesus. As truth of Jesus’ words grow in our heart and lives, we have opportunity to lovingly proclaim that truth.
Relationships are strained by a lack of honesty and truth. As children of God we have the source of truth to be filled with and that same truth to share in love with others. Let God’s honest truth be what builds honesty in all of your relationships.
Apply: Is there some aspect of life that you are avoiding God speaking truth into it? Why not a) seek truth for that aspect of life and b) try putting it into practice to see the blessing God brings from it!
Prayer: Lord, thank you for always presenting the truth to me. Sometimes I don’t like it, but I need it. Thank you for opening my mind and heart to the truth, for your truth enables me to be honest in all my relationships. AMEN.
Secure Relationships: Authentic
Devotions this week based on the Message: “Hope Comes with Secure Relationships”.
The real deal is a big deal.
We live a world of “knock offs.” I remember years ago traveling to Tijuana, Mexico, just south of the California/Mexico border. At that time it was an easy trip across the border and back. A few dollars would go along way to buy a few trinkets. Along the streets were various shops of vendors selling their wares. One was selling watches. A Gucci watch for $15 dollars. Wow! What a deal!
Nope. Just a cheap knock off. It had the name, but the inner working and the “gold” plating made it look good on the outside, but it was not the real deal.
People can be this way too. With social media we can portray to the world the image we want them to see. We create the perception and story others have of us…or at least we try.
Perhaps because we are afraid at what might happen if people really found out who we were and what we are like.
It’s easy to “put on a front” for a short period of time. But when someone gets to know us, they will see the real deal. It’s disconcerting when the “real deal” is different than what has been presented to us. It is securing when the person we get to know is truly the same as was presented to us.
Christians have an opportunity to make an impact by being authentic. Sure, we are tempted to put on our “Sunday best” and then “let it loose” the rest of the week. The Apostle John said this,
1 John 1:6 If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.
An authentic presentation of ourselves and authentic relationship with others starts with an authentic relationship with Jesus. We need connection to Jesus to purify us inside and out. Sin loves to hide inside and as much as we try, we can’t always hide it on the outside. But Jesus loves to come into our hearts and lives and expose sin and replace it with his forgiveness and the power of the Spirit.
The reason? So we can walk in the light, just as Jesus walks in the light.
Jesus is authentic. Who he is as true God and true man, the Savior and servant of all is truly who he is. He doesn’t change or fool us into thinking he is one thing and then presenting another. In Jesus there is no sin and evil. In him there is justice and love. In him there is forgiveness and grace.
When this permeates our hearts and minds, it takes over and all of us become influenced by and a reflection of Jesus to others.
Wouldn’t that be a wonderful thing? To always reflect Jesus to others so when people see us, they see Jesus.
I think so. I pray God helps me to do just that.
Apply: What “part of you” do you try to hide from others because you are afraid of their reaction if they would find out. Perhaps spend time in prayer to ask God to align even that part of us to his light and his way.
Prayer: Lord Jesus, thank you for being authentic – the real deal, our God, our Savior, our Light. AMEN.
Secure Relationships: Consistency
Devotions this week based on the Message: “Hope Comes with Secure Relationships”.
Everyone wants relationships they can count on.
When I can’t trust or depend on someone, my hope diminishes that anything good will come from that relationship. However, relationships that are secure and dependable give me hope that there IS someone I can rely on, depend on, and move into the future with.
This week we will look at four components that make a secure relationship…find them in our relationship with the Lord and with each other.
Today: CONSISTENCY
Consistency is being the person that shows up day after day, week after week in the same way. We probably all know a person or two that you never know how that person is going to show up. Are they going to be chill? Will they fly off the handle? Will they change their expectations?
Insecurity in a relationship comes when the other person is inconsistent. When we are inconsistent, it’s hard to predict what we will do or how we will react.
It can be hard to be consistent. Situations change. Our mood changes. Our perspectives change.
To be consistent, we need a “true north” so to speak to which we can always orient ourselves. James says this: Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.
For Christians, our orientation for consistency is the Word of God…hearing it AND doing what it says. Difficult? Yes, it still is. However, it gives us a place to continue to go back to and people will know when they interact with us, the constant will be our humbleness before the Word of God.
Why is this a place of consistency?
Because the Word is written by the God who is always constant. The Apostle John put it this way: 1 John 1:1 That which was from the beginning, …” or in his Gospel, John 1:1-2 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.
Genesis 1:1 says, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” John points us to a God who is completely consistent. He has been from before time began and has existed and been the same throughout the pages of Scripture. Mankind has created different gods, which leads one to feel frustrated to know a God consistently. The God who revealed himself in the pages of Scripture, IS the one true God.
This relationship is one God wants to make sure is secure. First between us and him. That is found in the person and work of Jesus Christ. When I realize the security in the consistency of my relationship with God, I am better grounded to provide a secure, consistent relationship with others.
How does this happen? My relationship with God grounds me to the Word of God. When I’m grounded in the Word of God, I always have an orientation to life that works and makes sense. With the Word of God as my guide, I can be a secure, consistent relationship to others.
Apply: Spend a moment to evaluate the relationships you enjoy. What truth of God’s Word might help you be a more consistent secure person to those around you?
Prayer: Lord thank you for always being the same. I know I can always count on you for you are always consistent in who you say you are and what you say you will do. AMEN.
Standing Firm for 500 years…
Devotions this week based on the Message: “Hope Comes with Secure Relationships”.
NOTE: Today’s devotion is a special recognition of the 500th Anniversary of Martin Luther’s confession of faith at the Diet of Worms on April 18, 1521.
Here I stand.
500 years ago yesterday, Martin Luther stood before Emperor Charles V and the leaders of the papacy challenged to recant his writings. Knowing that his life was on the line he famously and boldly proclaimed:
“Unless I am convinced by Scripture and plain reason – I do not accept the authority of the popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other – my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me. Amen.”
Watch a snippet of it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LksxZ8EVTS0
Can we stand with the same conviction today?
The pressures may not come from the papacy or the Roman Emperor, but they do come from the media, academia, culture and even other Christians. The threat is to make life difficult for all those that would hold to a faith system that a) claims an ultimate authority (Bible) and b) claims an exclusive way to heaven thereby excluding all who would believe differently (Faith in Jesus).
The temptation is to cower and recant or at least lay silent to our Spirit-given convictions that the Scripture is the inspired, inerrant Word of God and the sole norm of faith and life. It’s tempting to allow for many paths to heaven to avoid the accusations of exclusivity and judgmentalism.
At stake wasn’t just Luther’s safety, it was the eternal safety of souls. God used Luther to stand against the false teaching of the Catholic Church which was perpetuating a salvation by works (and still does) and an authority of a man-made church hierarchy that set itself above Scripture (and still does). As Luther spoke at the Diet of Worms, it was not only for his sake, but for ours as well. He wasn’t there to pick on the Catholic Church, but to stand boldly against the false teaching of the church. He simply wanted the church to get back to the authority of Scripture…alone and the message of Salvation by God’s grace…alone.
To teach and believe anything else left grace and truth hidden.
The irony, is those that accused Luther didn’t take him up on his offer. He was willing if they could show from Scripture or plain reason he was in error, he would consider recanting that work or portion of writing.
But they didn’t because they couldn’t.
Luther wasn’t perfect and our faith isn’t in Luther, but God used Luther to bring bold conviction back to the forefront of the Church the glorious focus of we are saved by GRACE ALONE through FAITH ALONE in CHRIST ALONE found in SCRIPTURE ALONE!
1 Peter 3:15 But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect…
Apply: Take time to read a bit more of Luther’s Statement at the Diet of Worms on April 18, 1521. Find encouragement and courage to stand firm on the truth of Scripture!
Prayer: Lord thank you for the courage you gave to Martin Luther to stand firmly on the truth of Scripture. Give us the same boldness and courage to do the same today! AMEN.