Faith In The City

I read something this morning that changed how I think about forgiveness completely.Ephesians 4:32 says to be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.Today, listening to Scott Savage break down the reading in the Bible Recap, something clicked that never had before.He talked about a time in his own life when someone betrayed him and he genuinely did not feel like he had the capacity to forgive them. What he came to understand is that we are not called to forgive based on how much forgiveness we personally have in us. We are called to forgive based on how much God has already forgiven us, and then pass that forward. His forgiveness was never meant to stop with us. It is a reservoir. We are supposed to keep giving it away.As a Cancer, I am the type to hold onto hurt and bitterness longer than I should. That has always been true for me. I have really struggled in the past to let things go when people hurt me.What has changed is not that I finally figured out some perfect formula. It is that I understand something now I did not understand before. Holding onto hurt only hurts me. The peace I have now, the peace that goes beyond understanding, does not leave room for me to keep replaying what someone did to me. I don't want anything in my spirit that would keep me from God, His love, and eternal life.I am not saying this is easy. I am saying I have learned to forgive quicker and release faster, mostly because I keep turning my focus back to the joy and the peace I already have. When you spend your day saying thank you God, thank you for life, thank you for another chance, there just is not a lot of room left over for bitterness.I think this is true for grace and mercy too, not just forgiveness. It is really about how we treat people in general. Scripture is not quiet on this. It talks again and again about how we treat the undervalued, the oppressed, the widows, the orphans. I think the grace and mercy God gives me every single day is something I am supposed to take and hand to the next person. Wanting God to keep extending that to me is part of what has made me quicker to extend it to others.A devotional called Love in Action reinforced this same idea today, pointing to 1 John 4:11, 1 Peter 3:8, and Luke 6:36. All three talk about being sympathetic, compassionate, and humble with each other because of how God first loved us. The devotional made a point that stuck with me. If we fail to love people well, we also fail to show them God's love. Compassion is not a nice extra. It is one of the main ways we communicate who God is to somebody else.If you want a picture of what this actually looks like in real life, read through the story of Jesus in Mark, Luke, Matthew, and John. That is the blueprint for compassion, kindness, and forgiveness.Here is where I want to leave you. Think about the people in your life right now. Who could use some compassion from you? Who do you need to forgive? Who needs your encouragement or your kindness today? Then go do it. Show them. Let them see God through how you treat them, how you love them, how you encourage them, and how you make them believe they can do it too.To me, that is the whole foundation of discipleship. It is the road to eternal life.Peace, Love and Joy always. Infinite Faith and Favor | kharisco.com

I told my best friend the other day that God is the plan, not the backup plan. I said it kind of joking, like He is Batman and I am just Robin. But the more I think about it, the more I realize how much I actually needed to hear that myself.Today's verse of the day is Matthew 19:26. Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." It is one of those verses that gets pulled out and used as a blank check. People quote it to mean God can do anything I ask, so I can ask for anything I want.But that is not what Jesus was talking about.The devotional I read this morning, Jesus Does the Impossible, walked through the verses right before this one. A young man came to Jesus and asked what he needed to do to get eternal life. Jesus told him to sell everything he owned and follow Him. The young man walked away sad because he had a lot of stuff and he was not willing to let go of it.That is the context for "with man this is impossible." Jesus was not talking about wish fulfillment. He was talking about salvation. We cannot save ourselves. We cannot work hard enough, be good enough, or hustle hard enough to earn eternal life. Salvation only happens because God made a way through Jesus. It was never something we could achieve on our own strength.That makes me think about myself, because I know exactly what it feels like to try to do something in my own strength that was never meant to be carried alone.The devotional asked me to reflect on what is keeping me from loving Jesus with my whole heart. Is it a relationship. Is it possessions. Is it a mindset. Is it even something as small as a TV show. Is there unforgiveness or bitterness sitting in my heart that I have not dealt with. I read that question and it made me want to dig deeper into my own life more than I expected it to.So I prayed and asked God to keep searching my heart. I asked Him to reveal anything in me that is keeping me from loving Him fully, from surrendering completely to Him. And I am believing that once those things are revealed, I will actually let them go.Here is where the Batman and Robin thing comes back in. I told my friend that God is like Batman and I am the sidekick, Robin. I said it as a joke but it is actually true. We treat God like the backup plan. We grind, we strive, we strategize, and then if none of that works we ask God to step in and fix it. But He was never supposed to be the backup. He is supposed to be the one we go to first.I have people close to me who feel like they have to strive so hard for everything. They grind and plan and force things to happen because they do not feel safe letting God do His part. I understand it because I have done it too. But grace is not grind. Abide is not strive. Somewhere along the way we forgot that we get to let Him cook.So today I am not asking God for something impossible in the way people usually mean it. I am asking Him to search my heart, to show me what I am still holding onto in my own strength, and to help me actually hand it over instead of just saying I did.Peace, Love and Joy always. Infinite Faith and Favor | InfiniteFaithandFavor.com