Forgiveness.
One of the central themes that runs throughout the entire scripture is that of forgiveness,from Genesis to revelation Gods mercy and His forgiveness towards us and our need to show mercy and to forgive is clearly and unambiguously declared.
Forgiveness is a central theme of the new testament, it is crucial to our discipleship as Christians and essential to our well being and to the development of our faith.
In particular our calling to "Forgive others just as God in Christ has forgiven us" is not only our duty but the only sane response to the incredible mercy from God that each one of us has so lavishly received.
It is my assessment that many Christians know that forgiveness is important to their spiritual growth and yet struggle with unforgiveness, sometimes with issues that stretch back for decades.
It is also to often the case that churches are divided and split apart and friendships between Christians aborted all because of a failure to act according to this one principle that of forgiving others even as Christ forgave us.
So why is this?
If forgiveness is so fundamental to our spiritual growth as Christians, and if it is so crucial to our relationship with God then why is there so much unforgivness and strife in the church?
I believe that forgiveness is a simple principal that can be simply mastered and when we do so it will enable us to walk consistently in the love of God without fear of failure or of being tripped up by the enemy of our souls.
The first reason that many Christians fail to practice forgiveness is because they look to their feelings rather than acting in faith according to Gods word.
If you were to ask any christian who has felt unable to forgive or still nurtures a grudge against another I am sure that the first words that you would hear coming out of their mouths would be "I don,t feel able to forgive"
Some would even say "I have tried to forgive but I can,t forget the offence"
It is evident that many Christians are looking at how they feel as the arbiter of whether they have truly forgiven;when my feelings change that I know that I will have forgiven, when they are still in turmoil then I cannot have yet let go.
Forgiveness however is like any other spiritual virtue in the new testament or like any other discipline something that we operate only by faith.
I believe that it is possible to not only forgive but also to so forget an offence committed against us that our feelings towards that person or about that past circumstance do change entirely, however the way to see this victory in our lives is only ever to act by faith on what God has said in His Word.
Jesus gave us a powerful parable in Matthews gospel and chapter 18 which deals with our attitude of forgiveness vs unforgivness.
The parable is to long to quote in its entirety here now however it deals with a king who forgives one of his servants of a large debt.
This servant owed him an enormous sum but because he is unable to repay the debt he faces both himself and his entire family being sold into slavery.
He pleads for mercy before the king"The servant therefore fell down before him,saying,"master,have patience with me, and I will pay you all."v26
And the king response is one of pure grace and mercy,
"Then the master of that servant was moved with compassion, released him, and forgave him the debt.
There are few places in scripture that indicate to us more clearly the reality of our need before God and the willingness of our Father in heaven to forgive then this.
We come to God hopelessly unable to pay the debt of Adam transgression which we have inherited in our fallen unredeemable natures, and we come with the addition of a life of having consistently failed to live as we should and having committed many sins before God and man.
And yet God who is rich in mercy forgave us the debt of all of our sin when we turned in repentance and faith towards Him,and wipes out the record of all of our offences that stood against us, and gave to us a brand new nature that is indwelt by God who is love himself.
In this parable in Matthew 18 the forgiven servant having received mercy goes out from the presence of the king and immediately finds one of his fellow servants who owed him by comparison a small and insignificant debt.
He demands payment and in spite of his fellow servant asking him for mercy in precisely the same way that he had some short time earlier, he refuses to give mercy and casts his fellow servant into the jail until he has repayed all of his debt.
His fellow servants report this to the king who summons the unforgiving servant into his presence and says these chilling words to him
"You wicked servant!
"I forgave you all that debt because you begged me."
"Should you not have had compassion on your fellow servant,just as I had pity on you?"
And his master was angry and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due to him.
"So my heavenly father will also will do to you if each of you,from his heart,does not forgive his brother his trespasses."
The wicked servant evidently had a short memory and forgot the extent of the mercy of that king towards him.
So to we have despised Gods great mercy towards us when we say "I will not forgive" to others who have offended us.
When the bible says that the unforgiving servant was delivered to the torturers until he should repay all his debt the actual Greek word that is used there could also be translated "tormentors"
People who withold forgiveness from another experience no rest in their lives, but it will because a harassing tormenting issue that they can never silence or shrug off, far less forget until they forgive.
The actual offence that was committed against them may have been committed 50 years ago but it is as real and present to them and as fresh in their memory as if it had only just been committed.
No christian should or has to live with torment in their lives due to their withholding forgiveness from another person.
There is a little phrase at the very end of this passage that is a key to understanding how we should exercise forgiveness consistently and freely in our lives.
"So my heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you,from his heart,does not forgive his brother his trespasses."
We are to exercise this forgiveness from the heart.
I mentioned earlier that forgiveness is not something that we do led by our feelings, by whether we feel that we can forgive or not.
Rather I said that forgiveness is something that we exercise by faith as we simply act upon Gods word.
But in order to do this we must separate and distinguish between the soul and the spirit in our lives.
You are a spirit you have a soul and you live in a body.
Jesus said that God is a spirit and they that worship Him must worship him in spirit and in truth.
We who are made in Gods image and in his likeness are therefore also a spirit and we have a soul which comprises of the mind and the will and the emotions.
The bible talks about the Word of God separating and dividing asunder the soul and the spirit,and it is so important that we do allow this process to begin in our christian lives.
We need to dintinquish what is of the soul and what is of the spirit or we will remain carnal Christians who are immature in our responses for the rest of our earthly lives.
The spirit of a man is his innermost being his innermost conscience and the place where faith resides.
In the scriptures the word for spirit is most often used in the new testament where greater light was thrown upon the nature of man in his redemption, and the word for heart is more often used in the Old.
But essentially they are one and the same the heart is the spirit and the spirit is the heart.
It is in our heart or our spirit that we believe and it is in our heart or spirit that we forgive.
Our feelings are irrelevant to our ability to forgive and will most often hinder us, especially if we allow them to be at the forefront of our lives when it comes to our decision to forgive.
Rather when we forgive we do so from our spirit and we do so by faith.
We need to have faith that when we forgive we do so not as some empty act or mere ritual but we do so in the Presence of God and that obedience on our part releases the activity of Gods Spirit to work in that situation and in that other persons life(if they are still alive)
The book of proverbs chapter 4 tells us that we should "Guard our heart with all diligence for out of it flow the issues of life"
It then proceeds to tell us to "Put away perversity from our lips and put deceitful speech far from us.
To let your eyes look straight before you and your eyelids look straight ahead.
Do not turn to the right hand or to the left keep your foot from evil"
Walking in Gods love and exercising his forgiveness is walking in a straight path and not departing from it.
But it is most especially in the heart that we are to be vigilant to guard our thoughts and attitude because it is there in our spirits that we have the "issues if life"
It is in our spirit that we have received this new seed of a new nature
It is in our heart or in our spirit that we have received eternal life.
And it is in our spirits that we now are indwelt by God who is love who also has shed abroad his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit whom he has given to us.
It is so important that we release this love of God by the words that we speak.
According to proverbs 4 we guard our hearts and maintain the issues of life by "putting away perversity far from us and corrupt talk far from us."
We select the words that we speak carefully not engaging in words of strife or resentment and similarly we need to speak out our forgiveness.
Jesus said that" out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks"
The love of God that is in us needs to overflow out of us in forgiveness by what we say.
When someone has taken advantage of you or wronged you or unkindly treated you or acted selfishly towards you, you and I need to be able to say "Father in Jesus name I choose to forgive that person"
"I forgive them of any grievance or complaint that I have have against them"
I choose to forgive from my heart.
As an act of my will I am willing to forgive them in Jesus name."
In the new testament the agape love of God which is from God and which dwells inside of every child of God is always linked to our will.
We chose whether to exercise this love or not.
And how do we choose this?
By simply choosing to act upon God word.
God has told me to forgive anything and everything that I may have against another(no matter how insignificant or small it may seem)And He has told me to do so from my heart.
The bible says that it is the little foxes that spoil the vines, so never be deceived into thinking that any offence is too small.
If it was significant enough to register on you then it is significant enought to need to be forgiven.
Remember that this lifestyle is essentially for your sake not just for the other persons, to keep your heart free from all bitterness or resentment that would choke off the love of God from freely flowing through you and would play havoc with the quality of your faith
In fact if you are not praticised in doing this as a quick and spontaneous response and if you are not accustomed to speaking this out of your mouth as words spoken in a simple act of faith, then it may take a while to learn to bring your feelings into line.
But take heart you are obeying Gods word and he will honour you.
Your mind may tell you this is not working;likewise your feelings may be screaming at you I still feel the same.
Learn to deal with your soul, and your mind and its doubts, and your emotions and its turbulence just as you would an unruly child.
Say to your mind "Be quiet!" And say to your emotions" No! You will not deceive me.
I have already forgiven that person in Gods sight."
I have chosen by an act of my own will to forgive and to do so from my heart.
Say, "That is already dealt with and I have rolled the care of that person and of that situation over upon the Lord.
Now I will not think about that any more or touch that in my thought life."
You may need to do this repeatedly at first until you become established in these things but remember that you only need to forgive once, and then you take your stand of faith.
Littered throughout Christendom are Churches today that have been significantly weakened because of the entering in of strife and a spirit of division and rivalry and where people have taken an offence and others have walked out and others are bitter and determined to contaminate as many others as they can with their words of unforgivnesss.
These things are to our shame.
There is a powerful little scripture in Jeremiah 12 which says
"If you have run with the footman,and they have wearied you,
Then how will you contend with horses?
And if in the land of peace,
In which you trusted,they wearied you,
Then how will you do in the flooding of the Jordan?"
If some Christians are so quick to take offence over issues that are seemingly so slight then how will they fare when a real offence occurs?
If a christian is overwhelmed by someone saying something unkind to them or ignoring them and not giving to them what they feel they need, then how will they possibly stand in the midst of a real trial of unjust provocation?
We need to be men and women of greater backbone spiritually speaking.
It is always helpful to remember this; I am not responsible for what you may think of me or what you may feel about me,or of anything that you may speak against me.
I am not your controller and I am not responsible for your thoughts or actions towards me.
You will have to give account of yourself to God for your own thoughts and words and deeds, just as I will also.
What I am responsible for however if my own thoughts towards you, how I act and feel and think towards you.
I am responsible for my own actions towards you and that is what I am vigilant in guarding over closely.
Some deluded Christians and that is the truth of what they sadly are, feel that it is their responsibility to make someone else change and demand that they change and require them to change their attitude towards them, whilst all the time ignoring their own heart which is full of anger and unforgivness and bitterness.
Some will say," Did not Jesus say that we were to go to our brother who has sinned against us and point out his fault and then to take another with us, and finally to tell it to the whole church?"
Yes he did in Matthew 18, but if ever a Scripture was misunderstood and abused it is this one.
Those in the church who have as they would call it a ministry of exposing the sins and failures of others are operating straight out of a demonic inspiration.
A "fault finding spirit never comes from God"
In that passage of scripture we are told to deal with an offense that is a clear sin or offense against us and to seek personal reconcilation first with that other brother or sister so as to heal the breach before it is necessary for it to affect the whole church. This takes honesty and humility and courage to do it but it is also hugely rewarding for those who do so and obey,especially when you are able to see reconcilation and recovery of a realationship that is on the brink of a complete breakdown.
What it does not say is if a brother sins against you tell it to your pastor and then to everyone who is willing to listen to you.
This scripture is dealing with a serious offence not just a matter of someone giving offence because of a thoughtless word or selffish act or an unkind response.
If we went to point out these "sins " to them all the time then we would be guilty of becoming fault finders ourselves.
Most offences can and should be dealt with in the privacy of our own payer closets between us and God
But when a more serious breach of trust and sin against us has been committed which would put our relationship and christian fellowship between ourselves and that person in jeopardy unless it is resolved then we have been given a clear guideline as to the procedure in taking the steps necessary to win back this brother or sister if they are willing and open to God.
Paul said in 1 Corinthians 3 vs 3 "For where there are envy,strife,and divisions among you,are you not carnal and behaving like mere men?"
Paul was having to deal with strife and dissensions and disunity among the Corinthians because they were acting as mere men.
They should have been acting like spiritual men.
When we act out of the fallen nature and carnal instincts of our flesh we are acting as mere men.
We may try and justify it to ourselves or to others but the fruit will always speak for itself.
But when we choose to become spiritual men and women and to live in the spirit and to walk in love, then forgiveness becomes a law that we live by and from which we do not change.
Then we will see the greater blessings of God, and then we will see the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
And then we will prove that we are growing up into him who is our head Jesus our Lord from whom the whole body knitted and joined together by that which every joint and member supplies see the growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.Eph 4 16

Reading the signs of the times part 1.
We are living in extraordinary times
.All too often when we watch events unfold in the world we are confronted with events of such magnitude that we can wonder precisely what disaster or calamity is going to unfold next.
It is a remarkable fact often overlooked that at least one quarter of all of the scriptures are predictive prophecy.
In other words God alone knows the future and often describes the future to us where we need to know things that lie ahead,in order that we may be thoroughly equipped to serve him and have prepared ourselves for what lies ahead.
Many Christians are worn down by life and by the continued barrage of disasters that are occurring which can sometimes only serve to anesthetize them to being able to discern what is going on in the world.
There is a passage of scripture that I have always loved in 1 chronicles 12 20 21 which says speaking of the tribe of Issachar that "the children of Issachar who had understanding of the times,to know what Israel ought to do"
This old testament tribe of Israel not only had discernment in their times and of their times but knew what God required of them to do.
They knew what their response in the midst of those times ought to be.
This is a very apt description of what we should be like as Christians, not as those who are going about wringing their hands saying what in the world is going on, which is incidentally what a lot of people in the world themselves are saying at this moment,but we should rather be as those that know what God is saying and respond accordingly.
The bible has spoken of the days in which we are alive and mapped out for us precisely where we are going.
In Matthews gospel chapter 24 the disciples are commenting on the architectural beauty of the temple and Jesus startles them with his words that follow.
He says to his disciples in verse 2 "Do you not see all these things?Assuredly,I say to you,not one stone shall be left here upon another,that shall not be thrown down."
Later we are told the disciples come to Jesus as he is sitting on the mount of olives looking out over Jerusalem and they ask him when this destruction of the temple will occur.
"Tell us,when will these things be?And what will be the sign of your coming,and of the end of the age?"
So we see that there are two distinct lines of thought here firstly when will the temple be destroyed,and secondly what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of this age?
Jesus answered both questions describing exactly what to look out for before the destruction of the temple which happened exactly almost 40 years later, and then proceeds to devote the rest of this passage to describing precisely what the signs would be just prior to his coming.
I believe that as we look at some of these we can never doubt that we are alive in that very generation.
The first answer that Jesus gives to his disciples of when will the temple be destroyed is in Luke's account of this same passage in Luke 21 20 22
"But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies,then know that its desolation is near.
"Then let those in Judea flee to the mountains, let those who are in the midst of her depart,and let not those who are in the country enter her."
This was precisely fulfilled in 70 ad when the roman general Vespasian surrounded Jerusalem and laid siege to it,intent upon its destruction.
Early into the siege however he was abruptly called back to Rome by the senate as he was chosen to be the next emperor.
The siege was lifted and the Roman armies withdrew.
Those Christians however that remembered the words of Jesus recalled that he had said "When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies know that its destruction is near.Then let those in Judea flee to the mountains and let those who are in the midst of her depart..."
And that is precisely what the Christians living in Jerusalem did who believed Jesus words they departed and withdrew to a town called pella which was on the east side of the Jordan.
Vespasian's successor Titus reformed the siege and eventually Jerusalem fell.
During that war over 2 million Jews were slaughtered and a further one million sold into captivity and Jerusalem was so completely destroyed that literally not one single stone of the temple remained upon another.
It is important for us to acknowledge that God always means what he says and the He says exactly what he means.
The Christians who believed Jesus words and acted accordingly saved their lives those Jews living in Jerusalem who did not believe were summarily slaughtered.
Likewise for us today when we see unambiguously the words of Jesus prophecy coming to pass we need to take these things to heart and to act accordingly.
In this first blog I want to simply touch upon the initial signs that Jesus outlines for us to look out for and look at the first of these.
In subsequent posts I would like to consider some of the other signs and what our response needs to be.
In Matthews gospel chapter 24 and verse 4 following we read "And Jesus answered and said to them;
"Take heed that no one deceives you."For many will come in my name saying,"I am the Christ,and will deceive many.
"And you will hear of wars and rumours of wars.See that you are not troubled;for all these things must come to pass,but the end is not yet.
"For nation will rise against nation,and kingdom against kingdom.And there will be famines,pestilences,and earthquakes in various places.
"And these are the beginning of sorrows.
vs 12 "And because lawlessness will abound the love of many will grow cold .
"But he who endures to the end will be saved.
"And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come."
Jesus refers to the signs of his coming and a sign is just that something that points to and announces the approach of something else.
If we were driving along a stretch of road and passed by a sign announcing a sudden dangerous bend in the road, we may if we were distracted or careless have missed the first sign.
However the sign would be repeated and so if we repeatedly missed the signs and approached the curve in the road too fast it would be because we ignored the signs.
The signs were not placed by the roadside to draw attention to themselves, but instead they were placed there to call attention to the reality of something that the driver is about to encounter further along the road.
Likewise the signs of the end of this age and the second coming of the Lord are not meant to draw peoples attention to themselves but are given by God to point to an impending event the coming of the Lord.
Jesus called the people of his day hypocrites because they had learned to accurately predict the patterns of the weather but could not discern the signs of the times.(Luke 12 56)
The Lord Jesus did not have particularly good things to say concerning hypocrites so we do not want to be in their company.
Today we have spent millions of pounds on satellites that can very accurately predict for us the weather patterns for several days, but sadly all to often even Christians are living in ignorance of the signs of the times.
Some Christians I am sure feel slightly confused about the array of various "end time teachings"that are circulating about the body of Christ, many of them conflicting in their assertions.
However this should not deter us from our responsibility to study what Jesus said concerning these things, or what other of the new testament writers said.
When we break down the words of Jesus concerning these events then we discover that it is remarkably clear and simple to understand.
For Jesus did not teach his disciples these things to confuse them but to equip them and us for what I believe is not about to occur on this earth.

It is important to see that whilst the increase of natural disasters such as earthquakes,famines and pestilences are foretold that is not the number one sign that we are living in the generation before the coming of the Lord.
The number one sign which we will see before the Lord returns is rather that of people being deceived or of deception.
And Jesus answered and said to them take heed;
"Take heed that no one deceives you.
"For many will come in my name saying,"I am the Christ", and will deceive many".
The emergence of false messiahs and false Christs is not going to happen it has already happened throughout the history of the last two thousand years.
One Jewish enclyopedia lists over 40 false Christs or Messiahs which have arisen and come to the Jewish people to mislead them.
However what is also implied from this warning is that there will be an increase in deception in general and Christians need to be rooted in the truth of who Jesus is and of what he has done for them as never before.
The Apostle Paul says the same thing when he gazes prophetically into the future in 2 Tim 4 and states,
Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season.Convince,rebuke,exhort,with all long suffering and teaching.
For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine,but according to their own desires,because they have itching ears,they will heap up for themselves teachers;and they will turn their ears away from the truth,and be turned aside to fables.
Paul predicts an hour of human history when there will be a multiplication of teachers who give to people what "their itching ears want to hear"
Or in other words what their flesh wants to be flattered with.
Truth often stings it always challenges and it always builds us up in faith hope and agape love.
Truth always points us to Jesus and his death upon the cross.
It builds us up in the knowledge of our inheritance in Christ Jesus, and gives light on His inheritance in us.
It establishes and strengthens us, humbles and equips us, and always it brings us into a closer and more vital walk with Christ.
Today many of the foundational truths of the gospel are being denied even by those who call themselves believers.
Truths like the atonement and the new birth the authority of the scriptures and the reality of hell are all under attack.
And this attack is often coming from surprising quarters.
In addition there are today a rising army of "wellness" gurus and self help teachers who spout doctrines extolling the virtues of self discovery and maximising the potential of your self, but say nothing of Christs death burial and resurrection and the relationship of that to all of human kind.
They do not teach the reality that all of human kind irrespective of race colour culture or creed is born into one of two families and one of two natures Adams or Christs, Jesus or the devils life or death.
Political correctness and its counterpart within the church religious correctness have silenced much of the church whilst condemning multiplied millions of souls to hell.
If ever a generation needed to know and to love the truth it is ours.
But this rising tide of deceivers and deception is not something which we are to fear as Christians.
The Bible never points to fear as the answer to deception, infact if we fear a thing long enough we are in far greater danger of being vulnerable to it.
Job said that "what I have greatly feared has come upon me"
Rather it is our vigilance and love for the truth that will save us,not our fearing of deception of any kind.
Paul when he is writing to the Philippian church prays for them that
"Your love may abound more and more in knowledge and in all discernment,that you may approve and discern the things that are excellent,that you may be sincere and without offence till the day of Christ."
In other words it was their growth in walking in love that sharpened their spiritual discernment, not their succumbing to a spirit of fear.
Some misguided Christians see it as a God given calling to warn everybody else of the dangers of this deception or that,whilst failing to see that they are themselves focusing on the darkness that they are wishing to warn others away from.
And such preaching almost always only sows increasing fear into the lives of those who are listening.
I remember being told of the process that the US Treasury uses when it is training its bank tellers to recognize counterfeit currency.
To begin with they allow them no exposure to any counterfeit notes, and train them to handle and become completely familiar with the genuine currency.
Only after some time will they introduce a false note here or there and the results are always the same.
The tellers always report "feeling strange" when handling the counterfeit notes, even when there may be no discernable difference between the real and the false.
The hundreds of hours which they have spent working with the true notes have made them instinctively sensitive to discern when they encounter a false.
This is precisely how we should be when knowing and discerning truth from falsehood.
Our propensity to know truth from falsehood should be honed from the amount of time we have spent listening to and loving the truth.
Paul talks in 1 thess about those whom God allows to be subject to delusion becuse he says they would not "receive a love of the truth"
We are kept safe by our love for the truth not by our fear or focus upon the darkness.
Heart motive is so important in the christian life, we may emphatically defend the truth whilst all the time operating out of a motive of anger in wanting to correct those who are being mislead.
Our motive however can only ever be one of love, and we should seek to win others by exhibing a spirit of humility not contention.
But if our desire to help others is based upon our desire to focus upon the truth not upon the lie or the falsehood,and if our driving motive is our love for God and our love of his truth then we will be kept by God in his truth and have no fear of going astray.
Gods word declares that he has not given to us a spirit of fear but one of power and of love and of a sound mind.
Let us believe that and thank God for that and let us walk in the light of that day by day.