We all carry guilt
around. We all carry the "If
only"s, the regrets. Guilt builds
barriers between you and God. I don’t
want to get to know God if I feel like He’s going to judge me. Maybe you got
the wrong message. Jesus said, "I
didn’t come to condemn the world. I came
to save it."
shouted curses at his father and then stormed out of the house and didn’t
return. Days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months.
The father searched the city over and finally in desperation he went down to
the newspaper and took out an add. It said, "Paco, if you read this, I
want you to know that all is forgiven. I love you and I will be waiting for you
at this Sunday at the entrance to the city park. I hope you show up, love
dad."
He said that Sunday morning 200 Paco’s showed up at the park, all looking for
forgiveness.
There are so many people searching in this world. Searching for forgiveness,
for hope, for meaning. And the good news of Easter is that the empty tomb
provides that hope in a hopeless world.
AUTHOR UNKNOWN
Guilt builds barriers
between you and other people. If you
feel guilty toward somebody you don’t want to see them. Colossians 3:14,"He has
forgiven all our sins and canceled every record of the debt we owed. Christ has done away with it by nailing it to
the cross." Circle
"canceled". Its like a
canceled check. How long do you remember
a debt that has been canceled? a bill
that’s been paid? You don’t. Do you worry about debts that have been
paid? No! You just forget them. He’s saying here that
you don’t have to worry about sins that have been paid. If God has forgiven it, I can forget it. That’s good news!
living, when you can get up in the morning, look yourself in the mirror and
know you’re forgiven. You’ve blown it, you’ve made a lot of mistakes and done a
lot of dumb stunts and made bad decisions but you know you’re forgiven. All of
us have made decisions we wish we hadn’t made, we’ve all said things we’d like
to retract, we’ve all done things and thought things we wish we hadn’t done and
we’re embarrassed about. None of us are
perfect. Yet Jesus Christ said I can be
forgiven and start over.
whatever you’ve done, you matter to God. You really do. Nobody will love
you more than Jesus Christ. He’s already
paid for everything you’ve done wrong and you can stop nailing yourself to a
cross because He did it for you. That’s
good news! He wants to forgive you and
give you a fresh start in life.
There’s a word for "knowing
about" God. It is the word
"religion". Religion is
knowing about God. I’m not talking about
religion today. Frankly, I don’t care
what your religious background is. You
may be Catholic or Protestant or Jewish or Buddhist or Baptist. It doesn’t matter to me. Religion is knowing about God, but knowing
God is a relationship. Jesus Christ
did not come to earth to give us a religion. He came to give us a relationship, to relate to us. God wants you to
know Him .
will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and show myself to him and we
will come to him and make our home with him." Wouldn’t you like to get to know God in that
kind of way? In an intimate, personal,
practical way where you talk to Him just like I’m talking to you? You can. You really can. It’s not some freaky thing. You can, as an intellectual, rational human
being, get to know God because He wants you to know Him. Just don’t let religion get in the way.