• Forgiveness: No Ugly Pictures

  Contributed by John Petty on Jan 18, 2008 (message contributor)

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  Scripture:  None

  Tags:  Forgiveness For Others

  Denomination: Church Of God

FORGIVENESS: NO UGLY PICTURES

I was approached by the station manager of a local television station in Pensacola, Fl to contribute a 50-second devotional for his program transition period. I was reluctant to agree, since I struggled to limit my sermons to even 30 minutes. But feeling impressed by the Lord to accept it, I did.

I sat back in my office chair and began to struggle with what I would share, when the Lord spoke to me: "a picture is worth a thousand words." Immediately I thought, "Wow, that's great. I can hold an object in my hands and I'm already a thousand words ahead. But what object, Lord?" He said again, "A picture is worth a thousand words."

Then the thought came...what could "picture" mean? The Lord said, "What takes a picture?" A camera, of course I'll hold a camera. But what for? The Lord then taught me a beautiful illustration of forgiveness. He asked me how would I like for someone to be waiting to take my picture first thing in the morning before I had time to shave, shower and get myself together. My reaction was "No way." He then said, "When we refuse to forgive others, it's like taking a picture of them when they are their ugliest, never letting them be anything else but the person who offended us."

Forgiving others allows us to tear up those ugly images, and it sets them free to be all that God created them to be. None of us want to be remembered only for the bad.