Seeing Godâ€™s Forgiveness Helps Us Release Others

sermonindex Jul 8, 2015

You, Lord, are forgiving and good, abounding in love to all who call to you. ”“ Psalm 86:5

We reflect many times in our attitude and character our perception of how God is. Our picture of God at times paints the way we deal with and think of others. When someone has a view of God that is only austere, severe and aloof, such thinking will result in dealing with people without love and relationship. When we hold to a view that God is only interested in justice, we will seek the same. When we do not fully experience the love, mercy and forgiveness of God, it is impossible to share that same forgiveness to others. When we minimize the forgiveness of God we end up loving others less (Luke 7:47). God is love, he is good and forgiving. He is not first wrath, just, or exacting. We must realize the character of God rightly or we will become severe and hurtful to others around us even in the body of Christ. It is a terrible thing to desire a brother or sister in the Lord to be judged by God. We should always seek and pray for mercy upon others not exacting justice. If we all got what we deserved even for our small offences it would be a terrible thing. God allows us to have a personal relationship with himself and he forgives and loves us as children. Though God is to be feared and reverenced we must realize that we are accepted by him fully through Jesus Christ. He has forgiven us and continues to forgive us (1 John 1:9).

Jesus says "be reconciled” to your brother who has something against you (Matthew 5:24). As believers we have been given the "ministry of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:18). It would not only be strange but wrong to not forgive others and still claim to represent God’s forgiveness to the world for their sins. When we preach the Good News to others yet hold unforgiveness to someone we become hypocrites. We offer humanity forgiveness through Christ yet at the same time are in bondage to unforgiveness and evil thoughts towards others. We who claim to be entering the kingdom of the Forgiving God, must show forgiveness to others. When we pray the Lord’s pray we essentially say "Come, O Lord, and forgive me my sins even as I forgive those who sin against me.” Forgiveness is at the core and heart of God. St. Augustine said, "Imagine the vanity of thinking that your enemy can do you more damage than your enmity.” Essentially, what is being said is that the damage you do to yourself, your very soul, by your unforgiveness far outweighs any hurt an enemy can cause. Heavenly Father, I release others who I have held things against. Help me to see Your forgiveness and love more so I can in turn love and forgive others. Amen.

from: https://gregjgordon.wordpress.com/2015/07/08/seeing-gods-forgiveness-helps-us-release-others/

J

Jeremy221 Jul 10, 2015

from: https://gregjgordon.wordpress.com/2015/07/08/seeing-gods-forgiveness-helps-us-release-others/

Why is this here?

sermonindex Jul 10, 2015

Re: Breaking Guidelines

Hello brother,

As a moderator on the website, I have been posting from time to time personal writings that I felt would be good for the community. If you feel this is a double-standard because it is my personal blog writings that is fine. For any outside articles that we post, we try in many cases to source the url, so google and people realize there is a source writing on another site. I see the blog as an extension or part of the work I do serving the Lord and his people on sermonindex. All the writings are on SermonIndex also: https://www.sermonindex.net/modules/articles/index.php?view=category&cid=921

As well as I am going to be making available all the short ebooks that I am compiling for the community on SermonIndex, there is specifically a ebook being done to help towards christian community, misunderstandings, submitting to authority and other topics.

I trust it makes sense to you that we try to minimize repetitive posts from outside speakers, even one's that we agree with. The stance is that this sets a standard to help prevent abuse, promotion of materials that we cannot have time to review, etc.

J

Jeremy221 Jul 10, 2015

3. HAVING A PERSONAL AGENDA - We look down on people who come with personal agenda's or are trying to justify themselves on a particular doctrine or emphasis. We believe it is not healthy to try and impose a truth that you have on many other brothers or sisters. This type of believer feels that a truth they have is more important then the rest and feels a godliness for holding to that truth. Such a godliness is false and will not bring about the fruits of the Spirit in the life of that believer (Galatians 5:22-23).

6. SELF-PROMOTION - Self-Promoting your own teachings or articles, sermons and videos is not encouraged in the forums. We have hand-selected over 50,000 audio, video and text resources on sermon index and we ask that the majority of the discussions centre around those materials provided. You can post another article or sermon from another source also long as its not contrary to the tenor of the materials on SermonIndex. But we ask that you do not promote your own audio sermon materials. 'Let someone else praise you, and not your own mouth' (Proverbs 27:2).

If the content is on SI, you should post a link to its location there. I have privately rebuked you on these issues in the past but you have not repented.

Three years ago you published this as a result.

https://www.sermonindex.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=45066&forum=35

sermonindex Jul 10, 2015

If the content is on SI, you should post a link to its location there. I have privately rebuked you on these issues in the past but you have not repented.

Brother,

Unfortunately this thread has stemmed from the fact that I deleted your post this morning with a a video link, one similar to many you have been posting over the last month or more. To be honest we really have tried to only enforce the rule of not posting repetitive outside content when necessary. We are not against the speakers or the content you have shared.

It is sad that you feel it is better to now not approach me via email on this issue but publicly try and find fault in my motives or actions online rather. We already had a problem where a brother disagreed vehemently with my right to post my devotional and website link but that he could not do it with his. I believe strongly this issue results in a lack of submitting to authority whether it be a moderator authority on a discussion forum, pastoral authority or other.

At times I have posted on different themes repeatedly on SermonIndex to help minister in areas I felt the Lord was leading me to minister to the body. I have felt the same way towards submission to authority, forgiveness, church unity and other subjects of late. This is not a personal agenda or self-promotion but a desire to shepherd and serve the body of Christ here.

As I shared as a moderator and founder of the website, though it is the Lord's ministry, I have a clear conscience towards my writings being shared as part of this ministry. You have "privately rebuked" me and situations on SI on a number of occasions and I do not feel overall they were from the Lord or something clear from him. Over 2 years ago, I was running a blog and at that time I felt I was striving too much to make it popular.

Currently at this point the blog I have setup has very little traffic and I just feel led to get the content out for those the Lord wants to hear. The main goal is to write, get feedback and work on compiling these writings in edited form in ebooks.

I hope that makes things more clear. In the end some brethren have not felt comfortable at all to respect authority and that is why we put that into the community guidelines as well as encourage reading the book:

A recommend book resource: Touching Godliness Through Submission by K.P. Yohannan - https://www.sermonindex.net/modules/mydownloads/visit.php?lid=22831

In the end, I am sorry I do not have your respect in the Lord. I am before the Lord honestly trying to run this ministry in the best way possible for Him and the Lord's people.

God bless you.

D

davidkeel Jul 10, 2015

Ive been through a lot of turbulance as a believer and to cut a long story short it was the call of repentance that came to me that brought great relief to me.

Personal revival isnt just a call for a few people its a transition we will all need to face. Its at this point many are offended and draw back from the faith.

That process of us laying down things in our life has been made to look easier by the grace teaching which in its worst form is trying to do away with repentance . Simply by the fact it hardly ever mentions it. I find this on TV plus many conversations with my friends who at one point used to talk about obeying the Lord as a joy in their life.

Personal revival isnt in a handbook but many of the great believers who have lived before us had to pass through that narrow road and they all bear testimony as to how in a barren place God called them all in different times to a life that Christ spoke about. They were all called seperately without them knowing each other . But they all bear witness to the hard road or the narrow way.

Its best if we ackmowledge what a great place this website is. As I'm a bit worried very much that it could disappear if we find fault. To have all these talks available to us which concentrate on the stage in our life that can be the loneliest, hardest and most misunderstood, but that also leads to a closer walk with Christ. It's a great treasure.

Im not a close friend to anyone on here and I dont want to appear that im just saying things to get anyones approval, rather i want to share about things Ive picked up in my life as the Lord has told me to teach it.

I really find that the site is going in the direction of promoting personal revival and that Greg understands the subject well.
I dont mind him posting stuff here.
I'm not against you Jeremy I'm just a bit worried about what might happen. God Bless.

J

Jeremy221 Jul 13, 2015

You have slandered me in regards to citing the cause as being linked to the post. You read according to the flesh.

Since June 1st, 2015, I have made nine other posts in "Articles and Sermons." Three posts have been about or from the Glorious Church 2015 conference. Prior to the conference, I published information for brethren who may be interested, making two posts within a minute and left it alone.

Brother,
Thank you for sharing, Bryan Purtle is a friend and good brother. I do recommend this event to brethren especially local to the Kansas City area.

SermonIndex ( 2015/2/17 9:24)

You misrepresented me in this and belittled my testimony. In your email reply to my rebuke you cited the same argument you use today. However, I will not cite it for privacy. Your response to my email is dated May 31, 2012. You can check your inbox. My email is dated 5/30/2012.

On June 2, 2012, apparently after some time with the Lord, you public ally posted this,

Dear Saints,
I am not sure how many of you noticed a venture I was attempting to undertake over the last few weeks. I began a personal blog at www.greggordon.net Some of the reasons behind this desire was to start writing more publicly (which I am still aiming to do). Also part of the desire was to build a website platform to be able to promote any future ebooks /books I publish which I still feel the Lord has me to do.
But I need to confess to brothers and sisters here that I knew I was striving during this time to "make it happen" and not trusting the Lord by the Spirit fully. There is a calling of the Lord on my heart to write and to see some short books published for the body of Christ but I felt I was attempting in some ways in my own strength to accomplish it. I have personally repented of this and have taken the website blog down.
I do not want to be found building the kingdom of man and have the kingdom of God suffer. I failed to hear and follow the voice of the Lord clearly. In no way do I feel condemned by this I simply feel renewed in my desire to seek the Lord Himself and receive more clear and direct instructions from him.
I am sure many of us can be in such a place to go ahead with our own scheming and talents and resources. I have a renewed faith now to ask the Lord for the impossible so that He may be glorified from it. I want Him to open the doors so there can be a testimony built for His kingdom.
Thank you for your patience towards this servant of the Lord and your continued prayers that I can guide this ministry rightly in the ways of the Lord. I do not want to judge by appearance but to trust the Lord for there results for eternity which is by faith and not by sight.
I wrote this article during the time with the blog and felt it was a warning to my heart not realizing I would have to repent like this and act on this warning to not build my own platform. May this bless someone today:

SermonIndex, 2012/6/2 12:02

https://www.sermonindex.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=45066&forum=35

You may have rejected what I said initially but within two days the Holy Spirit moved you to take the blog down. I ask you to notice how the idea of promotion is littered through the confession. The writing of the book is initiated by the Lord but the means is through worldly means. The Holy Spirit said no and you humbled yourself.

In recent months I have confronted you and others on not waiting on God before posting. Your response was that I was expecting too much and that you didn't have the time to know if something was fully from God. We are responsible for every word, every post. You can't post because your in the heat of the moment or because something is cool.

I know that my personal experience is that I've had to be checked by the Spirit even when He said yes and to speak. I've had the Spirit remove anointing and then throw away hours of composition because I ventured into my own. Every little word will be before you at the Judgement. God is holy. He doesn't speak without purpose or profound reason.