5/13/2008
Psalm 130:3 “If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared.” If I were to ask my older daughter the number of times her sister has played with her doll house without permission, she wouldn’t even hesitate in telling me. But it’s not just children who remember the number of offenses against them, most adults have refined that art and are capable of holing on to an offense for years. One of the things I’ve learned about forgiveness recently is how amazing it is that God, the only one who really has any right to do so, doesn’t keep tally of all our mistakes. Instead, he forgives them and doesn’t count them any more. That means it’s rather presumptuous of us to think that we have the right to count the wrongs other people do against us. After all, if God doesn’t keep count, who’s to say that we’re a better judge and should keep count? Quite frankly, I’m relieved that God doesn’t keep a record of my sins, and if he’s willing to do that for me, I should be willing to do the same for others, and to teach my daughters to do likewise. Why? Because forgiveness is good news, and it’s good news we can practice on a daily basis.

5/12/2008
Ephesians 4:32 “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” Forgiveness changed the world; did you know that? When Jesus Christ hung on the cross for our sins and said, “Father forgive them…”, the world was changed forever. Now this past weekend, Iron Man once again ruled at the box office, which just goes to show how much audiences love superheroes; and why wouldn’t we? These are characters that do things we’ve always wanted to do. They fly, they fight against overwhelming odds for good and justice, and they have cool super powers. Well I’ve recently come to the conclusion that forgiveness is the greatest super power of all time, and you know what’s really exciting, we get to use it. The same power that Christ used to forgive the world when he died on the cross and rose from the dead is within all of us who call ourselves Christians. We too can change lives, save lives, and in fact change the world with the awesome power of forgiveness. Granted, forgiveness isn’t the easiest thing in the world to do, but when we’re willing to follow Christ’s example of forgiveness, we get a chance to be super, but without the tights, and that’s good news.

5/9/2008
Luke 10:29 “And who is my neighbor?” Last night I attended a neighborhood meeting on what we could do about a string of robberies that has taken place in our neighborhood the past six weeks (you may remember someone tried to break into our house while we were still there). It was very interesting because one of the solutions for this problem suggested to us by a crime prevention specialist was really quite simple; get to know your neighbors. We were told to get to know the people we live next door to and across the street from, to learn to recognize their daily pattern, what their cars look like, when they’re going to out of town and so forth. In general, be more neighborly with our neighbors. I found this to be a rather intriguing solution because one of the things we’ve been learning in church is that if we want to fulfill the great commission and go and make disciples of the world, for many of us that starts by simply going next door. We can improve the security of our neighborhoods and help people discover eternal security for their souls simply by getting to know our neighbors, don’t you think that’s good news?