I love the word forgiveness.      While this word may have many different meanings to different people, nowhere is it exemplified best than from the personal testimony of the apostle Paul.  In the book of ACTS, Paul gives his personal forgiveness inventory. If you remember this story, Paul was persecuting Christians when one day Jesus spoke to him from a bright light. Now that should get your attention, and for Paul, it did. This is what Paul says of that experience.

^{Acts 26:15  “}Then I asked, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ “ ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,’ the Lord replied. ‘Now get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen and will see of me. I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’

(For a full understanding of what happened in Paul’s life, check out chapter 9 of Acts)

There are a couple of things that stand out to me in this recounting from Paul. First, God came to set him free. That is what God does for us in Christ Jesus. Jesus confronts the bully in us. Have you ever faced your biggest fear only to discover that in reality there was nothing to fear in the first place? Jesus comes to us to help us realize that we can have something really great if we would trust Him to make it happen. Paul did not change by his own power; he received forgiveness.

Then he received an appointment. That’s the great thing about forgiveness; God chooses to use us who are less than perfect to accomplish that which is about Him. The perfect God uses imperfect people to demonstrate His forgiveness in action.  How cool is that!

You see what this means is that, now, we have a story that we can share with others. The power of our stories can be the catalyst for life-change in another person just as it was in the life of Paul and in countless Pauls since that time.

Why did God forgive you? To set you free from the powers of darkness so that through you the light of redemption might shine into others.  Put that way, forgiveness is a really cool thing.

Blessings,

Pastor Rip