Good morning!
Welcome to your morning coffee! May our Heavenly Father help us to be patient with each other, ask for and offer forgiveness to each other. Father, we are a family, brought together by your Son, because of your great love, and bound up into one body by your Spirit. Help us to cling to one another as you desire! Too often and too easily we drift apart, push each other away, and neglect each other. Our Heavenly Father, please, in the name of Jesus, by the power of the Spirit, call us and help us to bear with one another and to forgive each other. May we be one as you and Jesus are one! Amen.
Your Morning Song: "If I Stand" by Rich Mullins
Your Morning Scripture: Colossians 3:13
Bearing with one another and,
if one has a complaint against another,
forgiving each other;
as the Lord has forgiven you,
so you also must forgive.
...
The foundation of a Godly, Bible-believing church is forgiveness.
Because the truth is, we're a mess. We're messy. We struggle. We make mistakes. We are far from perfect. Sometimes we're not even a hospital for the sick, as I've heard some say. Some days it feels more like a couple medics on a battlefield, doing desperate triage while bullets fly and shells fall like thunder.
And even worse. As we fight in this war in this broken world, sometimes we hurt each other. Sometimes we are rude to each other, judgmental, neglectful. We're a mess.
What can we do when we're hit by friendly fire amongst God's people? What can we do when there's friction and frustration and hurt amongst believers?
Return to the foundation. Forgiveness.
Jesus called us into this family with forgiveness. He welcomed us in with forgiveness. He sustains perfectly and forever our forgiven state, and we are called to imitate Him, to echo Him, to follow Him.
Be patient with one another. Show wise mercy. Give mature grace.
Forgive each other.
Trust may be lost. Relationships may be hurt. Time may be needed to heal. But the practical, foundational truth remains.
Forgive each other.
And forgive the Jesus way. Not because of who the other is, or what they have done. But because of who you are. And because of what Jesus has done for you.
Do not wait for the right apology. Do not make others grovel or beg.
Forgive each other. Because we are ourselves are forgiven. And we have been forgiven by God far more than we will ever have to forgive anyone else.
A lack of forgiveness will turn a church into a moldy grave, full of hate and gossip and hurt.
A healthy, Godly, together kind of forgiveness will turn a church into a place of patience, grace, mercy, kindness, gentleness, healing, and peace.
Forgive each other. Because of who you are in Christ, not because of what anyone else has said or done.
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