Forgiveness is life restored!

Forgiveness is life restored. What transformed the woman of Luke 7:36-50. She arrived, kissed and wiped Jesus' feet with her tears. She was a woman of the night being transformed into a servant of the light Jesus is working nothing less than a miracle of love!

Tony de Mello tells this story: “Everyone kept telling me to change. I agreed I needed to change but I couldn’t — no matter how hard I tried. I felt powerless, trapped, confused. Then one day a friend said, ‘I love you just the way you are.’ It was the most freeing thing I’ve ever known in my life. Suddenly I relaxed. I came to life. I found the power to change. He taught me the very deep nature of God’s love for me.” God starts with us where we are. He is willing to forgive us right here and right now.

Colossians 2:13-14: “When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, ¹⁴having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross.

Forgiveness is a debt canceled but forgiveness also brings a life restored.

Clemmie Greenleaf is a 46-year-old advocate for the homeless in Nashville, Tennessee. She has lived in Nashville all her life. She lost her parents when she was 13. They were both alcoholics. Prostitution became the only way Clemmie could make enough money to take care of her younger siblings. So she turned to the streets, and drugs, and violence. Then as Clemmie tells it, “God called me by name when I was 40. I entered the Magdalene Recovery Program in 2000. By 2003 I was clean, sober, and able to hold a job.” Let us never forget that God takes people where they are and loves them back to life. He not only restores our souls, He restores our self-worth, our value. That’s what forgiveness is all about. It’s a life restored, brought back to life.

Forgiveness is a debt canceled.

Forgiveness is not cheap.

Forgiveness is your life restored.

Forgiveness returns to us what our sinful nature stole from us.

I am in no way perfect or even close, but I am forgiven. I am thanking God for His forgiveness today! You know I love ya, Don