“There is a connection in the kingdom of God between accepting forgiveness and showing forgiveness. If you think you have accepted forgiveness and you can’t show it then you haven’t actually accepted forgiveness. You think you’re part of his family but until you start extending what you have been shown you’re not actually part of his family.”
- Marshall Ochs
You want to talk about a sobering thought? Imagine in your mind’s eye, this awesome family has accepted you, and you busily check off the boxes of tasks you have created. You know this is good and right because you watched the other family members closely and learned how to live as one of them.
One day, you look up and there he is…the Father…He looks you over and with pain in his crinkly, dad eyes and says he does not recognize you.
You can’t breathe, the pressure in your chest building…how can this be? In desperation you begin to weep and yell, “I am your daughter! I checked all the boxes! Father, I did as you asked! I read, I sang, I fed the hungry, and I prayed!” Your cries are met with darkness.
At the end of the age, where will you be standing?
When I asked Jesus to forgive me, I signed an invisible soul contract. A part of me died that day and will continue to die as I submit myself to the path of Christ. Death and life walk hand in hand. My flesh can only take so many blows before it starts to cry out in pain and bitterness. I am only human and the ability to not forgive comes easily, but I am called…I am required to forgive. My desire to experience eternal life with Christ REQUIRES that I forgive and extend grace as much as God has seen fit to extend to me.
Bitterness will keep us from the throne room of God. Even when we thought we had forgiven, it can bleed out of us. But the beauty of the Father is his grace, so abundant and filling that as we receive…our cups run over and spill onto those around us. His grace physically pouring through us and extending to them in a supernatural way.
The path of forgiveness and grace…hard but good.
- Ashlyn Forstall