TO START A NEW YEAR

 

I am not a frequent visitor to Starbucks, but I recently gave myself a gift of dropping by early one morning for a venti Roasted Chestnut Praline Latte.  What's not to love about all of that!  I remember when visiting New York City for my 70th smelling the roasting chestnuts the vendors were selling on the streets every time I have one.  NOW, I am too cheap to make this splurge very often, but it seemed like the perfect Birthday-Christmas gift from me to me.  After all this began my love of a morning latte.  (I make my own at home---MUCH cheaper)

NEWSFLASH---some of the very best gifts are those we give ourselves.  After all no one could possibly know what we would like better than us.  One man's gold is another man's----.  The things I love-you might consider junk.  What you might like ---I might wonder, "What in the world were you thinking?".  Are we not SO thankful God all made us all different--unique.  That is what has made His world such a diverse and interesting place.

There is one gift you can give yourself which is perhaps the very best gift ever.

We ALL have done stupid things, things we regret, things we wish we could change.  At times these things are overtly deliberate and at other times inadvertent and perhaps we are even unaware of our injury to another.  One thing remains true for both of these--we need to confess, repent, forgive and THEN forgive ourselves.  Our unwillingness or seeming inability to forgive ourselves flies in the face of God's grace.  He paid the price, He provides the sacrifice and we need to accept His atonement.  There is NOTHING for which God has forgiven us that we cannot forgive ourselves.  The holding on to personal guilt is harmful not only to our relationship with God, but to our spirit and physical body.  Guilt, shame, regret, and all those negative emotions associated with our unwillingness to leave our offenses behind will become a ball and chain we are dragging behind us.  Friends, forgive yourself--put it behind you---take the words of The Father and place it as far as the east is from the west.

I am praying in the final days of this year we can pray that God will help us to leave the past in the past--covered with the blanket of forgiveness He has provided.  As you forgive others---also forgive yourself.

17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. 18 And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation;

II Corinthians 5:17-18