PPF: Faith or Fear?

 "Should you not have pity on your servant 

as I had pity on you?" Matthew 18:33

My favorite saying about forgiveness is Lewis Smedes- 

"To forgive is to set a prisoner free and 

discover that the prisoner was yourself."

And my favorite story is about 

Corrie ten Boom's struggle to forgive 

the prison guard in Ravensbruck. 

She had just given a talk about God's forgiveness 

and she saw him walking forward. 

Suddenly she was brought back to the huge room 

 in the concentration camp. 

She could see his blue uniform with the 

leather crop dangling from his belt. 

She remembered the shame of walking naked past this man, 

her sister Betsie before her, frail, 

her ribs jutting against her parchment skin.

And here he was, holding out his hand. 

"I have become a Christian," he said. 

"I know that God has forgiven me 

for the cruel things I did there, 

but I would like to hear it from your lips as well. 

Fräulein, will you forgive me?"

Corrie Ten Boom wrote, 

“I had to do it—I knew that. 

The message that God forgives 

has a prior condition: 

that we forgive those who have injured us. 

‘If you do not forgive men their trespasses,’ Jesus says, 

‘neither will your Father in heaven 

forgive your trespasses.’

 

 “I knew it not only as a commandment of God, 

but as a daily experience. 

Since the end of the war I had had 

a home in Holland for victims of Nazi brutality. 

 Those who were able to forgive 

their former enemies were able also 

to return to the outside world and rebuild their lives, 

no matter what the physical scars. 

Those who nursed their bitterness remained invalids. 

It was as simple and as horrible as that."

 "Blessed are you who believed

that what was spoken to you

by the Lord would be fulfilled."

Luke 1:45

It must have been frightening for Mary

to receive a message from an angel.

And even more frightening

to realize that her whole life was

about to take a radical turn.

Her response?

"Here I am, the Lord's bondslave,

His handmaiden.

Let it be with me as you say."

How many of us would have had the courage to say that?

 Instead of fear, Mary faced the future with faith.

Faith is believing God, rather than

giving credence to what we think, what we feel,

 or what others say.

We all have to face our own destiny and in

Romans 12:3 we learn that God gives each of us 

a measure of faith with which to face

whatever is handed out to us.

We have a choice whether to grow that faith

or to allow it to wither.

And the way to grow and make our faith blossom is,

"to HEAR the message of Christ."

Romans 10:17 

 

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Patsy