Welcome back Friends!

We discussed in my last post the little whispers that the enemy tells us about our pasts. This is one of Satan’s most used tools to distract us in our walks with Jesus.

We just need to remember that these snapshots are TOTALLY FORGIVEN when we ask Jesus to come into our hearts and when we live daily serving Him and walking according to His Word. Sometimes, I need reminding of this so that I can fervently remind Satan not to mess with me – I AM A CHILD OF GOD’s!

These 3 things that I have learned are such freeing truths from the Word of God that I want to share with you. I OFTEN tell these things to the devil as part of my warfare scheme!

1 – I am completely forgiven!
Completely….Seriously! However before we go too far down this road I always need to back up and ask myself “have I completely forgiven someone else?” Because if not, then I cannot be forgiven from my Heavenly Father.
Matthew 6:15 “But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins.”

Ouch! That is pretty straight forward isn’t it!? Is there someone who has hurt you or a place where then enemy has left a door open to insert himself and have that anger or hurt or resentment well up inside of you lately?

I had a friend recently call and ask for prayer…I mean, let me come to your house, have you lay hands on me kind of prayer! When she got there another friend and I were there just to be ministers for Jesus…that simple. My other prayer friend asked the troubled friend if there was any unforgiveness toward these people that “get her blood pressure up”? Hmmmm… there was a long pause.

That is sometimes where I need to go when things just aren’t going well and I seem to be struggling being a Jesus girl some days.

“Lord, is there any unforgiveness in my heart?”

Now, sometimes we as Christians have trouble receiving forgiveness for ourselves as well. In 2 Corinthians 5:17 it says we are completely forgiven! We are BRAND SPANKING NEW! (emphasis mine!:) )

In Ephesians 1:7 it says we have redemption through His blood. Redemption means PAID FOR!

Sometimes the greatest need that people need is that those that are far from Christ need to understand the forgiveness of Jesus! He forgives us so that we must forgive others.

You may be saying, “Amy, you just don’t get it!” No, I do….because I have been there and gotten the t-shirt! But that unforgiveness is a major ROOT of bondage that can hold us back from all that God wants us to be blessed with. It is BIGGER picture than we can ever realize.

Revisiting that ROOT and asking Jesus to show us how He would forgive and breaking that “grave-clothes tie” that is holding us back is a great place to start. Jesus WILL Deliver us from bondage but we sometimes have to be willing to take the first step!

Is God asking you to allow Him to revisit that scene or snapshot in our mind and cover it with HIS LOVE AND HIS FORGIVENESS?

2 – In Christ, I am CHOSEN and VALUABLE!

Cell phones are valuable to us. Come on’ …you know it is true. We don’t learn phone numbers anymore because we have all the important numbers stored along with our calendar’s that we now carry around in our phone! So when that phone goes missing – we panic! Sad, but I know I have walked in these shoes too!

Ephesians 1:3-4,11
“All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ. Even before He made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in His eyes. Furthermore, because we are united with Christ, we have received an inheritance from God for He chose us in advance, and He makes everything work out according to His plan.”

We are valuable to Christ because He chose us! Whether something is valuable or not is determined by the price that one is willing to pay for it.

The creator of the universe deems you valuable because of the price He paid with his Son’s life to save you and paid for our sins.

Last, is I am Unconditionally LOVED.

Jesus loved those lepers, blind and sick people. We are sometimes as dirty as those lepers. But through the grace of God and because Jesus has touched me with His forgiving hand – I am unconditionally loved!

Romans 8:38-39 says
“And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

One of the statements that I wrote down during my podcast listening, spring cleaning days was this…

“God doesn’t love us based on our performance but based on our position.”

We are His! He loves us no matter what!

All this to say…I got rid of some grave-clothes last week. I put to death those snapshots that Satan wanted to use as ammunition against me and God delivered! God won the snapshot war in me!

IN CHRIST, I’M FORGIVEN, CHOSEN, VALUABLE AND UNCONDITIONALLY LOVED!

I love you friends, I hope these words made sense today and brings encouragement to you as you bring up those snapshots and demolish them in Jesus name!

I want to leave you with this song that I heard this weekend and for the first time paid attention to the actual words. WOW! I was blown away with this actual music video for Tenth Avenue North! I hope you are too!

Some of the words of this song that blew me away are these:

Cause this is not about what you’ve done,
But what’s been done for you.
This is not about where you’ve been,
But where your brokenness brings you to

This is not about what you feel,
But what He felt to forgive you,
And what He felt to make you loved.

You are more than the choices that you’ve made,
You are more than the sum of your past mistakes,
You are more than the problems you create,
You’ve been remade.

So without further adieu….

Tenth Avenue North – “You are More”