FORGIVE US OUR TRESPASSES…

FORGIVE US OUR TRESPASSES…
Bishop Jakes shares.  

No matter who you are or what your personality is, it is impossible to live this life without some conflict along the way, Offenses come to everyone and they are a part of life. 

Bishop Jakes says, “…conflicts can be resolved and relationships do have a future, if we learn to forgive.”  We must be willing to look at our own ability to hurt, offend, and injure those around us, (who are often the people we love the most) in order to forgive others. 

The Lord’s Prayer provides us with a key insight into how we can experience the joy and abundant life Jesus came to bring us  “Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us (Matt. 6-11 KJV). 

Bishop Jakes says many people don’t realize when they pray this prayer they are asking God to forgive them  the same way they are forgiving (or not forgiving) others. 

Also that these words tie my forgiveness with my willingness to forgive, and remind us of the way our hearts work.  If we are not humbled with unwavering gratitude for what we have been forgiven, then it will be very difficult for us to forgive other people for what they do to us. 

He also says that an opportunity for you to forgive an offender is not so much a test of how you handle power as it is how you handle mercy. 

There is a thin line between the offended and the offender.  It is not that God is punishing us in this prayer but rather our human capacity to receive God’s grace is blocked when we are not willing to forgive those who have hurt us.  We cannot embrace God’s forgiveness if we are so busy clinging to past wounds and nursing old grudges. 

In order to move into the blessings of our future, we must relinquish the pains of the past. …

AS WE FORGIVE...

As adults we realize that we serve a forgiving God.  Our God is powerful and righteous and also merciful and compassionate.  It’s not that He just acts merciful to His children, but mercy is at the very heart of who He is. 

The reason His mercy is new every morning is that yesterday’s mercy removed all record of yesterday’s mistakes.  This means God is ready to start fresh again with us today.  He doesn’t hold our mistakes over our heads like people do. 

If we are to be forgiven, then we must be prepared to give forgiveness.  Bishop Jakes asks the question, if you can admit that you need forgiveness, then why won’t you give it?  Instead of being a conduit of his mercy, we who have often received it then deny it in a false sense of piety and religious purity.

Source: CBN
http://www.cbn.com/700club/guests/bios/td_jakes_032212.aspx