Sunday, June 12th – Accept Forgiveness And Drop The Load

One of the problems that we as Christians have is accepting forgiveness. We can offer it to others, we can ask God for it for ourselves, but often times we never forgive ourselves or allow ourselves to be forgiven.

Sometimes what we do is we come into the church on a Sunday morning and we worship, we pray, we feel God’s presence and allow him to touch us. We ask for His forgiveness and thank him knowing that we’ve been forgiven. We drop our burdens and we feel renewed. Then what happens is the service concludes and we start heading toward the door. We shake some hands, talk a little bit with our friends, and have some refreshment and drink. Then we start to leave and just as we get to the door, we reach down and pick up the burden that we just dropped off. A lot of times, we don’t do it on purpose; we do it out of habit. We are so used to living with the burden, with the guilt, that we don’t allow ourselves to be relieved of it. We drag it right out the door with us and we begin another weeklong journey of just trying to make it to the next Sunday without adding any additional weight to our pack.

Friends, that is not how God wants us to live or wants for our lives. What we need to do is accept and trust that God has forgiven us. We need that in our lives if we are going to be able to step out into what God has called us to do.

God has forgiven you, what we need to do beyond that is live in that promise and allow ourselves to be forgiven. We need to lay our sins and burdens at the foot of the cross and walk lighter. We need to remove the weight from our rucksacks so we can win the race! And not just until we get to the back door; we need to allow them to be cast away without looking back; we need to allow them to sink to the bottom of the ocean without hanging on to them. We need to walk in the power and freedom that Jesus himself died to give us.

So take the opportunity today to once and for all drop that burden and leave it behind. Remem- ber and dwell in the joy that is in Jesus. Don’t allow the enemy that foothold in your life; remove the shackles, remove the chains, run the race.