Forgiveness
A very good morning to you! It is Thursday morning, the 19th of May 2022, And this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.
“For Your name’s sake, O Lord,
Pardon my iniquity, for it is great.”Psalm 25:11
And then we go to Romans 5:20:
“But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more”
You know, one of the hardest things for a sinner to do is to forgive himself when all we need to do is to go to the Lord and say: “Sorry Lord” because He says, “My grace is sufficient for you.” I looked in the Oxford Dictionary, to find out the literal meaning of the word grace, this is what it says: "The free and unearned favour of God" or "undeserved loving-kindness." Another one is unmerited favour.
You see, we have to accept God’s forgiveness and it is one of the hardest things for people to do. “Lord, You cannot forgive me. I am such a great sinner.” John Newton who wrote Amazing Grace... Remember the slave ship captain? When he realized the enormity of his sin, he was overwhelmed and he wrote that beautiful hymn - "Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound in a sinner’s ear.” Apparently, when he was dying, he was whispering something, a man put his ear right to John Newton’s mouth and John Newton was quoted as saying, “What a great sinner I am but what a great Saviour Jesus is.”
We have to accept that the Lord has paid, in full, for our sin. Peter said to the Lord when He wanted to wash His feet: “You will never wash my feet” (John 13:8) and Jesus says, “I will have no part of you if you will not accept it.” I was also brought up in 'the old school' if you can’t pay for it, then you don’t take it. But we need to understand something - sometimes when we won’t take it as a gift, we offend somebody.
A young man told my son a few months ago that he wanted to give me his horse... Not just a horse but his best horse, as a gift. This horse is worth a lot of money and it is fully trained - You can shoot off its back, you can crack a whip, you can do anything on that horse... but he wants to give it to me as a gift. And another young man wants to make me a handmade, custom-made saddle. Initially, I said, “I can’t take it from these boys. It is also part of their livelihood.” My son said to me, “Dad, if you don’t take it, you will hurt them.” And so reluctantly and graciously I have accepted this gift which has touched me a lot. Now, Jesus paid a tremendous price for you. All you have to do is to say, “Lord, thank you for dying for me on a cross.”
Jesus bless you and have a wonderful day,
Goodbye.