Joy and Strength (Christian life and music)

I read these familiar verses this morning and they came to life for me. What do we really need in life?  According to the most famous prayer in the world, our Lord's Prayer, we need: - daily bread - to receive God's forgiveness and extend the same to others - to be delivered from evil There you have it: food, forgiveness, and freedom. To be content with and ever grateful that we have food to eat every day.  Of course we take this for granted.  Others around the globe do not. As Christians, we are forgiven people.  This is huge.  Do you know how many unbelievers are walking this earth with the weight of guilt, shame, and condemnation?  Another thing we take for granted - that we are forgiven in and through Christ.   That need is twofold: yes, we are so gratefully and undeservedly forgiven.  But the second part of that is even bigger: we are to forgive others the same exact way that Christ forgives us. How is that possible, you may wonder.  Well Jesus would never tell us to do so

Most people, including Christians, do not forgive each other. I have witnessed this over and over again in the past 30+ years of walking with Jesus. Ever since I came to the Lord, I naively assumed that if I wronged someone, knowingly or unknowingly, that I would be forgiven.  After all, that's what the Bible tells us to do, right?  So why, then, have I experienced so little of it among so-called Christians?  Don't they believe the Lord's Prayer - "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us"?  Maybe they don't care if they are forgiven by God. I have had to, like you, forgive many people over the years.  I find that it's a choice, not a feeling.  I rarely, if ever, feel  like forgiving someone.   But I do it in obedience to God.  I do it because I want to stay right with God and I so desperately want and need His forgiveness. When I turn to Jesus for forgiveness over anything, Jesus forgives me at once.  He doesn't wait to th

We've all known them.  People who hold grudges.  There is something small about them, almost like a caricature.  Not fully human.  Not able to be free within themselves. Holding on to unforgiveness shrinks us.  Where we could be stronger, taller, more fully fleshed out if we were forgiving instead, we remain small, lost, tied up inside by our unwillingness to let go, to release the other from our "right-ness."   Are we "right" when we assess someone's wrongdoing toward us?  We may be correct in our assessment of the situation, but that doesn't make us right.   It is so harmful to our souls, psyches, even our physical bodies, when we hold on to bitter feelings inside toward others.  So why do we do it?  It feels horrible!  Why do we torture ourselves so? We think that it somehow "gets back" at our wrongdoer, but we couldn't be further from the truth.  It harms us.  The very thing that's supposed to make us "feel better" ends up

Are we in search of an immediate breakthrough from the Lord?  A miraculous healing or deliverance?  Or are we in it for the long, hard work, painful haul? Be all in.  Yet another one of those catch phrases that becomes trite-sounding after awhile.  But when you are truly "all in" with Jesus, there is no turning back.  When the road gets rough - and if you are truly "in," it will get rough - what then? I saw a book on a co-workers desk once (back when we worked in the office - remember those days?), with a title something like, "Here's Your Breakthrough." I thought about it for a second. Then the Lord spoke to me, "Forgive others.  That's her breakthrough." The Spirit knew that she needed to forgive others.  Maybe someone from long ago in particular.  Once she did that, and stuck with it, she would get her breakthrough. So buying a book and reading it is very easy.  Most anyone can do that.  We want that magic "deliverance" that

Running my errands one day, I stopped at Target. Soon after I parked my car, a woman started to get in her car,  parked right next to mine.  I felt led to pray for her. Before she opened her door, I rolled down my window and asked if I could pray for her. She started crying uncontrollably.  “What’s wrong?” I asked.  “I can’t forgive him. I’m just so angry,” she said.  Seeing the severity of her emotions, I assumed what the transgression was. I asked her when it happened.  She blurted out something like, “Over a year ago.”  I sat in stunned silence.  The torrent of tears pouring out of her seemed so fresh, so new. As if her husband had just committed the offense recently.  She was crying as if it happened yesterday, not took place over a year ago. What I learned from that encounter is this:  Hurts we don’t let go of fester. The wounds stay as fresh as the day we were wounded, no matter how much time has passed since, if we do not forgive .  This woman told me she was a Christian. How sa