Thursday, September 19th, 2019

We’ve all heard It before: the familiar whisper in our minds to write someone off as unworthy of forgiveness. We will all hear it again – many times, most likely. What many of us fail to realize is that whisper is a temptation from the enemy himself. We often think of temptations as things we stand to gain: money, fame, power, or good feelings. But temptation leaves some of its most lasting damage in the world through reneging of grace. What makes this temptation so dangerous to our world is that it often affects the person we refuse to forgive more than us when the sin we refuse to forgive is small. Big sins or big hurts against us stay with us until we find the strength in Jesus to forgive them. But small sins, the ones that often cause us to just withdraw or write off someone we know, can lead that person to isolation while we forget why we ever wrote them off in the first place. That isolation is where the enemy does his most dangerous work. Many of the problems of this world could be avoided if we showed the same grace for others’ missteps that each of us would desire for ourselves. Romans says, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” Today, resolve to be the person who shows grace when other falter or sin against you just as Jesus does for you.

“for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” – Romans 3:23-24 NIV