Compiled by: Herman Abrahams (Pastor), Cornerstone Faith Ministries, P.O. Box 740, Westridge 7802, Rep. of South Africa.
E-Mail: Mentorship2003@yahoo.co.uk
Note to the reader:
If you have been blessed with this sermon compilation, I would be honoured to receive an e-mail from you simply stating where in the world you are based- I do not need any other information. This is merely so that I can have the pleasure of giving thanks to Almighty God that all over the globe, the ministry which he has entrusted to me, is blessing the body of Christ and helping to extend the Kingdom of God.
Thank you.
Herman Abrahams,
Cape Town, South Africa.
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Communion Meditation: My Fair Share
Psalm 103:10-13
Sometimes we say, “All I want is my fair share” or "I just want what’s due to me”. Everybody wants to be treated fairly, isn’t that so? We all want the proper change back when we buy something. If we find we have been shortchanged and didn’t get what was coming to us, we become angry. We vehemently demand our rights. These days there’s a lot of focus on one’s “human rights”; constitutions of countries are written with great emphasis on what’s right for the individual.
There is one area where I can be glad that I did not get a fair deal. It is an area where I will never demand my rights and insist on what’s coming to me. It is an area where I will forever remain silent and simply be thankful that I got shortchanged. The area that I am talking about is my sin.
Psalm 103:10-13: "He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him.”
God does not treat us as our sins required or as we deserved. Our sins were deserving of punishment. Instead, we received reward. We deserved death, but in its place we received life. Jesus, the one who deserved glory took our guilt and sin upon himself.
2 Corinthians 5:21 “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
This is love that cannot be measured; love that knows no limits was the reason. How far are the heavens above the earth? The heavens extend for untold millions of miles above the earth. If we can understand the limits of our universe, then we can understand God’s love for us. I cannot fully understand it, but I’m thankful for it.
Believers in Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour have had their sins removed from them by a compassionate Heavenly Father, never to be remembered again. When you travel toward the western horizon from the east, you never reach it. It simply stretches on before you. As far as the east is from the west, that is how far our sins are from us.
ILLUSTRATION
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Matthew, in recording a section of the Lord’s Prayer, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors,” used the word ‘aphiemi’ for ‘forgive’. It means to “send away”. This is the same word used in Luke 4:39 when Jesus rebuked the fever in Peter’s mother-in-law. That is the kind of forgiveness Psalm 103:12 describes as God removing our transgressions “as far as the East is from the West.” (Nelson’s Book of Stories, Illustrations and Quotes)
Jesus made all this possible. We remember these facts as we participate in the Lord’s Supper. May we honor the one who made it possible for us to get what we didn’t deserve—forgiveness and eternal life.
1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness”.
