“Hear my cry, O God; attend unto my prayer. From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the rock that is higher than I. For thou hast been a shelter for me, and a strong tower from the enemy.”
Psalm 61: 1 – 3 (King James Version)
Jesus is not only the rock of our salvation, He is also our rock of protection from our enemies. He protects us from the vicious poisonous darts of satan and the cruel sarcastic and criticizing remarks that people make to us. Thank God for our rock of protection!
If Jesus didn’t protect us daily and remove these darts from our hearts with His soothing salve of compassion and unconditional love, we would be walking around with these poisonous darts in our hearts all the time. However, there is another area in our lives where we need His protection.
We need Him to protect us from ourselves. I think if we are honest with ourselves, that there has been a time in all of our lives when we have allowed satan to lie to us and discourage us. There are times when we become our own enemies.
Jesus has told us that we are to love people unconditionally and to forgive them from our hearts. We need to understand that He is also telling us that we should love ourselves unconditionally and to also forgive ourselves when we fail Him. Jesus loves every person in the world unconditionally.
It doesn’t matter how many sins we have committed if they are under the cleansing atoning blood of Jesus, He has forgiven us for all of our sins and He will never hold them against us again. We read in the Bible “I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins” (Isaiah 43: 25). Four years ago, I used to go to God practically every hour and ask Him to forgive me for the sins I had committed before I was saved.
One day while I was praying and asking Him to forgive me, God spoke to my heart and said “What sins?” He doesn’t even remember them. Does this mean that He has a poor memory? No, of course He doesn’t have a poor memory. It simply means that He chose to forgive us for our sins and He will never hold them against us again.
When somebody hurts us and we tell them that we forgive them, we sometimes hold it against them for years. We have not really forgiven them and our attitudes stink in the nostrils of Jesus. When God tells us that He has forgiven us, we can know without a shadow of doubt that we are forgiven.
When our sins are washed away in the precious atoning blood of the Christ of
Heavenly Father, thank You so much for being so loving and compassionate to forgive us when we hurt You. Help us to bring honor to You and not shame by the way we live. May others always see Jesus in our actions and may they hear Him in our words. Thank You for sending Your beloved Son to save us from our sins. Thank You, Jesus, for loving us so much that You died for us. Thank You, dear Jesus, for being our rock of salvation and protection. We love You, Heavenly Father. We love You, Jesus. We love You, Holy Spirit. Amen.
Joanne Lowe
May 20, 2009
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