Sunday Snippets

Steve and I attended Watermark Community Church today and were blessed by the worship and sermon. There were a couple of songs I wanted to post about, but I have googled some of the lyrics and cannot find them. One in particular referred to Salvation living inside of me. I stand amazed that almighty God loves me and inhabits me. I think if I dwelt on that more often it would motivate me to be a better temple for Him to dwell in. The sermon was the final installment of a series on the Lord's prayer. I thought Todd made an interesting point in that Jesus never said that prayer for us to use it as a prayer to recite. In fact He tells them not to recite words over and over in Matthew 6:7. Prayer is where we line ourselves up with God's purposes. Because we know that God is always good and always provides we can be full of joy. Joy is not dependent on circumstances it is dependent on knowing God is good. God does not bless us in order to increase our standard of living but He blesses us to increase our standard of giving.

He then spent quite a bit of time talking about forgiveness. I have posted here before that the thing that makes forgiveness easier is the realization of how much God has forgiven me. Because God has shed His grace on me, I am to be a grace extender to others. Todd did bring up something new for me to contemplate. Forgiveness is not an emotional decision. If we waited until we feel like forgiving, we might never forgive. He gave this definition of forgiveness "A decision to continually and purposefully commit to be driven by love towards the people who abused you." Forgiveness is intentional. I am motivated by the love of God to love others with the love of God. It is easy for me to rationalize and say that someone doesn't deserve to be forgiven because they have not said they are sorry. Their confession is not what motivates my forgiveness, it motivates reconciliation. So it is possible to forgive but not be reconciled.

I live in thankfulness for the amazing ways that my God has forgiven me and I look forward to the times in my life that I will be able to extend that forgiveness to others.