Introduction to Week's Theme

Speaker 1 0:02

Hello and welcome to Walk the Walk . This week's podcast is on page 12 . If you're following along in the journal Jesus Helped Me Do Better my personal faith and reflection journal , if you're following along again , we're on page 12 . And this week we're going to talk about what does Jesus' love and forgiveness mean to you , and have you ever really truly experienced one or both of these ? I hope you have .

Speaker 1 0:32

Asking for forgiveness isn't just about saying forgive me , lord . I know sometimes some of us will do a pre-forgiveness like forgive me , lord , for what I'm about to say . Yeah , I think I've even done that a couple of times myself . But that's just part of the process of asking for forgiveness . The other part of it is asking God to give you the strength that you need If you're asking him to forgive you of a sin that you've been involved in . Sometimes people love those sins and , you know , ask for forgiveness when they feel a little bit guilty and they know in their mind I love this too much to give it up . But now that I've done it , I'm going to ask for forgiveness and we'll see how things go . Sometimes people just do that just to make themselves feel a little bit better , but we need to ask God for his strength , because we want to change . We don't want to fall back into that again . At least that's what we're supposed to do . I want to change from the inside out . I don't want to just change and be like , well , you know , I ask God to forgive me and , you know , wipe my hands clean and I'm done . Once we ask for forgiveness , jesus

The True Nature of Forgiveness

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does his part , and his part is that he forgives us as soon as we ask . But again , we have to do our part , and that's truly wanting to change .

Speaker 1 2:07

Remember , you are saved because of him , not of how fast you confess every mistake . Some people say well , what if I sin and then I die and I don't get a chance to ask God to forgive me of my sin ? Well , listen , god knows your heart , he knows who you've been . If you've been somebody that you know has been faithful and you are faithful you know it's not going to be . He died for every sin , but the last one you didn't get to confess and then off to hell you go . That's not how it works . So remember again , we are saved because of him and not how fast you confess your mistakes . And the beauty of all this is because Jesus is perfect . We too are perfect . These are for all of us who has accepted him as our Lord and Savior .

Speaker 1 3:03

Let me explain to you in my mind how I think this , how it's going to happen when we stand before God . Because if you're a sinner excuse me if you are saved and not as well , you are a sinner . So I guess that's correct . You are a sinner , but you're a saved sinner . I don't know if I've ever said it like that before , but if you're a saved sinner and you've accepted Christ as your Lord and Savior , when you go to heaven you stand before God , but you will not stand alone . Jesus will stand with you , and in my mind I'm thinking you know what ? Jesus will probably stand between me and God . So when God's looking at me , he's looking at Jesus , and when Jesus talks to God on my behalf , he's going to say look , she's saved and she tried to live her life according to the way that we wanted her to .

Speaker 1 4:00

If you've read my book Christianity Made Simple , it explains that process . It's not a long , tedious explanation , but it does give you a quick explanation about who God is , who Jesus is and who the Holy Spirit is and the whole thing between God and Jesus is that God listens to what Jesus has to say about us . That's for those of us who have accepted him as our Lord and Savior , forgiveness is about God choosing to remove the penalty of our sin because Jesus paid the price . Remember forgiveness is free to us , but not free to Jesus . It cost him his life . Even though we broke his heart , he chose to heal ours . I can't imagine that .

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In Romans 8.1 , it says there is now no condemnation , which is same thing as saying guilt . For those who are in Christ Jesus . It means for those

Standing Before God with Jesus

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who've accepted him as their Lord and Savior , we're no longer judged guilty by God , not sentenced to death , not disqualified from God's love . Jesus's love is without conditions . Think about this you don't put conditions on your family members . You don't say Listen , if you quit smoking , I will love you more . You don't say to your small children Now , if you stop sucking your thumb , I will love you more . We don't put conditions on love . At least we shouldn't . I hope you're not doing that . God does the same thing for us . He knows we are sinners and he knows that you know . How many times does it say that he will forgive us for the same sin 70 times 7 ? I don't think . That's an exact like 490 . Okay , chuck , we're at 400 . Chuck , we're at 401 . No , that just shows an infinite amount of time .

Speaker 1 6:10

Now I don't think God likes the idea that , oh , you know what , I'm going to go out today and I'll do this and I'll do that , but I know when I'm done I'll just ask for forgiveness and carry on . Kind of wipe your hands . That's not how this works . God knows your heart , he knows when you're playing around , he knows when you know what . You're not being serious about this . You need to take it seriously . And it doesn't matter , god loves you , no matter how good you are or how bad you are . He loves you because of who he

Jesus's Unconditional Love

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is and not because of who you are .

Speaker 1 6:49

I can't even imagine God's got this love for everybody . You know , my next book that I'm writing is going to be called Jesus Loves you , but I Don't and I know that's like a shocker title is going to be called Jesus Loves you , but I Don't , and I know that's like a shocker title . Actually , that's the point of it . But Jesus Loves you , but I Don't . I don't know if there's going to be like a byline . Yeah , I'm trying , but whatever , I do not know if it's possible for us to have the kind of love Jesus has .

Speaker 1 7:18

There are some people I don't even like . There's days when I don't even like , there's days when I don't even like myself . I can imagine how other people feel about me . I can imagine there are days when other people just don't like me and probably I deserve it . But we want to have Jesus's heart . We want to love like he does .

Speaker 1 7:40

But , like I say in the book that I'm writing , I may not love and I may not even like some people , but because I love Jesus and he loves me , I get credit for loving others . If I do what Christ wants me to do for others , even though I may not want to , even though I don't love that person , he says good job , my faithful servant . You've done it . You didn't want to , but you still did it and I hope that's what God will hear about me . Tina , I know you fed those homeless people and I know you didn't like some of them and I know that , matter of fact , there are some of them . You just downright could not stand . But you know what . You did it because I asked you to do it .

Speaker 1 8:34

Jesus loves us because of who he is and not because of who we are . Because if it was only conditional on who we are and what we did , I don't know , I don't know how many of us could say we know he loves us . In Romans 5.8 , it says but God demonstrates his own love for us in this . While we were still sinners , christ died for us . We were still sinners . Christ died for us .

Speaker 1 9:07

It's so hard to fathom the fact that he was being nailed to the cross , a very painful , painful death , knowing that people were out there spitting on him and cursing him and smacking him and whipped him . He still died . He still did it for them , for me , for you . You know , every time we sin , it's almost like taking the whip and hitting his back again . And we all do it as hard as some of us say I don't want to , but I do . Well , that's our spirit fighting against our flesh . What is it , paul , that said I do the very things I don't want to do ? Don't we all say that the things I don't want to do , I still do them ? Well , that's your flesh fighting against your spirit . It feels good . I enjoy it .

Loving Others Through Christ

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What's it going to hurt ? It's not that bad . Well , listen , I have a good reason . I mean , we try to come up with all these reasons and explanations for our sin , but there really isn't any good explanation for it . He died for us while we were still sinners . He proved his love , though , with his life , with his blood and with his death . He gave all of that up for me and for you .

Speaker 1 10:46

And you may be in the middle of your sin and thinking what is wrong with me ? Why can't I do this ? Maybe , just maybe , when you ask for forgiveness , you add a little tagline on there that says Give me the strength that I need to turn completely away from this sin

Closing Prayer and Next Episode

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. I don't want to ask for forgiveness for this same sin anymore . Jesus , give me the strength to stop and to show the love of Jesus Christ .

Speaker 1 11:26

Father , thank you for meeting us here today . Thank you for your never-ending love . You have set us free . You have gotten us through every struggle because of your grace . Help us to walk closer to you . Help us to trust you , not a little bit , not sometimes , but a hundred percent of the time . Help me to lean on you , especially when I'm weak , and that happens a lot . Remind us that , no matter what we've done . You love us , you offer a forgiveness . You extend your hand out to me and you encourage me to grab your hand . You offer us forgiveness . Help me to accept that and , even as important as that , father , help me to forgive those who have sinned or hurt me as well , because there's nothing worse than what you did on the cross for me and still said Father , forgive them , for they not know what they do . Wow , I don't know , jesus , that sounds pretty rough , but you did it and you did it for me . Thank you so much , father , for being here . Thank you for loving me , for giving me and giving me grace . In Jesus' name , I pray Amen .

Speaker 1 13:08

Next week's podcast . First of all , I just want you to know that we will not be following this journal page by page , so we may go from front to back to the middle , back to the front and whatever , but next week's going to come from page 20 . Repentance is more than just feeling bad for your mistakes . It's about making a change . Can you think of a time when you truly turned away from something and moved toward God ? How did that impact you ? So that's what we're going to talk about next week .

Speaker 1 13:40

So I hope you come back and join me . Please try to go ahead and fill out these journal questions and hopefully , maybe , when you come back , maybe what we say in the podcast will help you to be able to answer some of the questions as well . If you feel stuck , return again next week . Again , you can get your Jesus , help Me Do Better on Amazon . It's on there now , and so go on there and get your journal . I think they're $8.99 plus shipping and you can start anytime . You can go back and listen to these podcasts . If you're stuck on a certain page and if we've done it , you can go back and hopefully we can kind of get you through it , because sometimes I know I look at these questions and I think , hmm , and then when I start really thinking or listening to somebody else talk , it starts to make me give me some ideas as well . So thank you so much for joining me and I will talk to you next week .