Forgiving God

A retired pastor at our church started a Bible study last week based on the book, Totally Forgiving God by R. T. Kendall, copyrighted in 2012 and published by Charisma House, Lake Mary, FL.

It’s not like God is capable of making mistakes because He is perfect. With our human thinking, we can’t understand why He made mankind with the ability to act in an evil manner.

This author brings up lots of things to think about. God is perfect but He allows things we can’t fathom. Forgiveness always releases the person doing the forgiving from bitterness and depression and stress and sometimes a devastating illness.

Thelma Wells spoke to a large gathering of women in Syracuse, N.Y. I was privileged to attend with over three years ago. She related about an offense she carried against three women at her church. Not the details of the hurt, but how a really good friend approached her.

She told Thelma something to the affect that Thelma may not want to hear this, but she thought God wanted her to forgive these three ladies.

Thelma wasn’t ready to hear her at that time, but the friend brought it up again later. When she finally took action to forgive the women, something happened.

Thelma had been battling a life-threatening illness that puzzled the doctors. Suddenly, she began to heal and that didn’t make sense to them either. After a total healing over a bit of time, she decided to let the doctor know about her act of forgiveness and that God had healed her!

She wrote a book with many anecdotes and lots of Scripture entitled, Don’t Give In, God Wants You to Win. I also purchased the DVD to show at our church. Harvest House Publisher, Eugene, OR published both items and they were copyrighted in 2009.

She is a great speaker, if you ever get the chance to hear her, I think you’ll be blessed.

Well, tomorrow is a full day and once again, it’s after midnight, although not far past midnight. So may God bless you and keep you in the palm of His loving hand.

“God is love,” 1 John 4:8a (CEV).

Spring and Winter

I saw geese traveling in their “V” formation today, flying in the New York skies.

We’ve had such a mild winter. The last few days, the temperature  dropped, the sleet and snow arrived. When the geese flew overhead, I knew that is the sign that Spring will be here soon. I felt like Spring and Winter wrestled for preeminence.

Last night, some ladies and I watched a DVD produced by Harvest House some years back. I bought it and the book in 2012 at a conference in Syracuse , NY with keynote speaker: Thelma Wells. It’s entitled, “Don’t Give In, God Wants YOU to Win.”

She speaks with passion and authority. She tells about the devil wanting to kill, steal and destroy as stated in John 10:10, but Jesus came to give us life and that, abundantly! She believes there is a devil, despite many that don’t believe, because “it’s in the Bible, ‘the B I B L E: that’s the book for me.'” She quotes a song that Sunday School children sing. She’s lived her life according to the Scriptures since she was four years old and she has found them to stand true under testing.

Spring and Winter may wrestle for preeminence and evil and good may struggle for preeminence, but Jesus, God the Son says in Rev 3:11 (BBE), “I come quickly: keep that which you have, so that no one may take your crown.
Rev 3:12 Him who overcomes I will make a pillar in the house of my God, and he will go out no more: and I will put on him the name of my God, and the name of the town of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from my God, and my new name.
Rev 3:13 He who has ears, let him give ear to what the Spirit says to the churches.”

We have the power to overcome the whiles of the enemy, the principalities of the air because of Jesus’ victory over evil and His victory over the second death. We are told to hang on, to persevere, to overcome. God never tells us to do anything that we can’t do, because of God’s power to help us do all that He asks us to do.

Thelma Wells reminds herself of helpful Scriptures every day. She inspires me. Geese inspire me that the cold Winter and buried gardens will give way to warmth and living gardens in Spring.