I heard a story of a boy who went off to college. The story goes as he was hooking up his computer, stero, cell phone charger, his lamp, printer, and palm piolit at his desk when he went to turn on his computer, nothing happend. He went back and looked at his wiring and everything was connected properly. He called his dad in to check out the problem he was having. The father looked behind the desk and to his amazement he discovered the problem. His son had everything plugged into one power strip (take out a power strip), it was maxed out and then he realized that he had the actual power strip plugged into itself. The son in essence was trying to draw power form a source that was powerless.
Without tapping into the right source of power you will not have power to live a Godly life. Like the boy’s mistake of trying to draw power from a powerless source, we have to be very careful that we do not depend on ourselves but an outside source for power for living. Without the Lord we are plugged into ourselves and the world has a name for that and it is Will Power. Will power will only get people so far. Look at AA and NA, two drug rehabilation programs that only have at best a 5% cure rate, which is up from 2% it held years and years ago. But Teen Challenge, a Christ centered program has far exceeded 5%, and reached a peak of 86%. Teen Challenge has tapped into the power of God and brought sinners to repentance. What source of power do you want to draw from? Either you can draw power from a powerless source such as yourself or a source that has power to forgive the sins of the world, heal the sick, and raise the dead. The choice is up to you.
Tapping Into The Power of Forgivess!(TITLE)
When I thought about speaking on the subject of forgiveness, I wanted to find a passage of scriptures that at its core taught us about forgiveness, so I chose the woman caught in adultery. (John 7:53-8:11).
There has been debate over the authenticity of this story of the woman taken in adultery. Many older manuscripts do not include it.
(Augustine said that it has been stricken from some manuscripts because it might be used for a license to sin because he let her off so easy or it could have been added to the gospel after it was written. Also, some say it is not included in some manuscripts because the great display of mercy Jesus shows the woman) Whatever the case may be this passage is in agreement with the rest of scipture
John 8:1-11
1But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts; where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. 3The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group 4and said to Jesus, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?" 6They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.
But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. 7When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." 8Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.
9At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. 10Jesus straightened up and asked her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?"
11"No one, sir," she said.
"Then neither do I condemn you," Jesus declared. "Go now and leave your life of sin."
Man, what a powerful passage of scripture. This woman was on death row and Jesus saved the day. He was a hero that day. He is never too early or too late, but always right on time.
One thing I want you to see is that the beauty of this passage was that Jesus fliped the script on the Pharisees because when they brought this woman to Jesus, their main intent was to trick Jesus so that they would be able to bring charges against him so that they would be able have him arrested.
Watch what the Pharisees did, they said, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?"
First, the Bible says that she was caught in adultery, which means that she was married and having relations outside of her marriage with another man.
I want to show you something, the Law says Lev. 20:10,”If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife . . . both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to the death.” My question is where is the man when all this is going down? All we hear about is the woman, we do not her one thing about the man. We can look at this a few ways, we can question the integrity of the Pharisees who brought the woman to Jesus or we can say that Jesus only cares about woman!!! (JOKE)
I believe that the Pharisees here cared nothing for the law but only about trapping Jesus but we see that they are the one’s who got trapped in the end.
Ok, Now back to what I was saying about the trick questions that they Pharisees where asking. If Jesus answered, by agreeing with them and asking for the death penalty, He would be in violation of the Roman law, which did not give out the death penalty for adultery and if He had recommended mercy, then the Pharisees would have charged him with not keeping to the Law and He would considered a law breaker.
So they thought that they had Jesus. They were probably like this time, he is not going to talk his way out of it. They probably were walking with there heads up high thinking that they are the smartest people in the world and little do they know they are messing with the creator of the world.
So what does Jesus do, they are waiting for him to speak and He is completely silent and bends down to the ground. Exactly not what they where expecting. Just imagine the Pharisees think, no not think, they are probably convinced that they are going to trap him, but Jesus bends down and starts to write in the sand.
One commentator said that he bent down to take the attention off of the woman and to put the full attention of the public onto Him.
I could just imagine that scene, she is crying her eyes out and probably at the least being belittled and yelled at and here Jesus blows the crowd away by being silence, man that must have been such a relief for the woman.
Also, I read that his act of writing on the ground was some type of an object lesson, which without words, said that I am not paying any attention to you. Just think, if some one is speaking to you and you blow them off, you are saying that they are not worthy of your attention, so this must of pierced the Pharisees pride, because at this point that are dying in anticipation to have charges that would lead to Jesus’ arrested.
What was Jesus writing on the ground? That is a question that has baffled scholars for centuries. I researched this and some scholars said that it was customary to write out the official charges of the one being accused or Jesus could have been writing scripture like the Ten Commandments or the sins of the scribes and the Pharisees, we are not sure, but the next words that He says was the kicker which put a damper on the Pharisees party.
Jesus says, "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her."
I bet you when the Pharisees heard this, they where dumbfounded. They probably could not believe Jesus was able beat them at there own game. They came to trap Christ, but they got trapped in the process.
The law says in Deu 17:7 that the actual witness had to throw the first stone, but Jesus flipped it and said such a witness should be without sin. At this moment, they knew they all were in sin because they did not obey the law and bring the man when they brought charges against the woman.
The Pharisees were the ones being set up the whole time. Jesus aimed not only to bring the accused to repentance, which is the woman, by showing her His mercy, but the prosecutors, which are the Pharisees also by showing them their sins.
They thought they were going to ensnare Him, but He thought to convince and convert them.
Jesus neither condoned any kind of sin nor contradicted Moses.
So as the story goes, after he disked the Pharisees, he bent down again to write in the sand, (you know he might have been building a sand castle or something!) And all those who heard him started to leave one by one, oldest to youngest until it was just Jesus and the woman.
One scholar said, the Pharisees probably did not leave out of conviction, but rather they had been defeated in their attempt to trap the Son of God.
I bet you the woman could not believe her eyes; she went from being on death row and the center of attention to being the only one with Jesus. Jesus just literally saved her life. The Law of Moses condemned her, the Pharisees condemned her, but Jesus forgave her. That is what the grace of God is all about.
Jesus then straightens up and asks her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?" She says, No one, sir. Jesus says, “Then neither do I condemn you," "Go now and leave your life of sin."
These are extremely powerful words that I believe if we can write on the tablets of our hearts will bring us farther in life than we can ever imagine.
Jesus releases the woman to leave her life of sin. He does not bring up her sin, but gives her opportunity for repentance.
One scholar says the woman had the opportunity to follow the crowd as they where leaving, but he said, I trust that she remained because her heart yearned for forgiveness and a new life in the presence of the sinless one who was before her.
Now, how does this passage apply to our lives? I want to talk about three things I learned from studying this passage. The first thing is that “just as Jesus protected the woman; He also protects us. His protection is found in the power of forgiveness.
Christ came into the world to bring sinners like you and me to repentance, He did not come to destroy but to save the world from their sin.
God’s primary purpose in sending Jesus to the world was for the forgiveness of all our sins. Jesus is the reason we do not have to participate in Old Testament Customs of Forgiveness, which included all sacrifice rituals and trips to the temple once a year to receive forgiveness. Before Christ came to the world, people had to carry the burden of their sins all year around, until it was time for their once a year cleansing from all their sins. Man, that would feel pretty uncomfortable. Picture this, just imagine if you remembered every sin you committed all year around, you would probably be crying or insane after the first couple days or so . . .
Because of this forgiveness God cannot get mad at you when you sin, God does not stop loving you when you sin. Remember we can never out sin God. The Bible says that nothing in all of creation can separate us from the love of God that is found in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:38-39). If we are in Christ, then we are in God’s unconditional love and protection where nothing in all of creation can separate us from that love, except ourselves. We have the choice, either to tap into the power of Forgiveness or not?
My first point is very simple, but so important.
1.The Power of Forgiveness Protects us!
The reason that this adulteress woman (Forgiven woman) was not stoned to death that day was because Jesus showed the Pharisees that all people have sin in their lives. This passage taught the Pharisees that they are just as guilty as the Forgiven woman. Jesus forgave this woman even though she failed in life and was about to be killed for what she did. He still forgave her.
Just as we see in this passage, his forgiveness spared the women’s life and gave her a second chance. He will also do the same for you and me.
In turn for receiving Jesus’ forgiveness, we become free from the power of sin and receive an eternal inheritance, which gives us a passport to heaven.
Understanding the concept of Forgiveness is foundational and extremely important to live a Godly life. Life Begins with forgiveness, in order to be born again we have to believe Jesus for the forgiveness of our sins. Until we truly do that, we will be on a grease poll to hell.
Lets look at what the bible says, 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.
Confession is essential in order to tap into the power of Forgiveness. Just think people are words away from being forgiven, from going to heaven and they do not even know it. All we have to do is talk to God with a sincere heart and He forgives us and frees us.
It is up to us, if we want to give our lives to him and receive forgiveness and freedom or do we want to control our lives ourselves and receive condemnation and bondage?
Tapping into the power of forgiveness gives you a fresh start everyday and a new beginning to take on life.
Forgiveness has the power to erases mistakes, where unforgiveness has the power to magnify them!
Forgiveness keeps us close to God; unforgiveness keeps us away from God!
I read a story of a little girl who got caught stealing a book from a church bookstore. She took the book home and was in the process of destroying the book when her parents caught her. They asked her where she got the book. She could not lie to her parents so she told them the truth. The parents thought it was only right if she would go talk to somebody in charge at the church. The pastor of the church is a man by the name of Lee Strobel, who is a world famous Christian author. In the conservation between Mr. Strobel and the little girl, they made an agreement that the little girl would pay the $5 for the book and $15 for restitution. When she began to think, how am I going to get so much money the little girl had a look on her face like she would never in a hundred years be able to save $20. As she looked puzzled and upset, Mr. Strobel took out his checkbook and wrote a check for $20 and handed it to her. She was amazed and the pastor was able to use this situation as an opportunity to show how God forgiveness works.
You see Jesus was the payment for all the worlds’ sin.
Just like the check that Mr. Strobel wrote to cover the book and the extra 15 dollars for restitution, God took out his checkbook and signed the check in Christ’s blood so that we can have abundant life.
First thing is, we have to be forgiven. This requires you to ask for forgiveness and turn from your sins. The second part of forgiveness is, we have to forgive ourselves for our past so that we can move on with our future.
One of the hardest things I had to do is forgive myself for all those bad things I did in my B.C., before Christ, life.
The Bible says in Psalms 103:12, “As far as the east is from west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.”
I do not think you can get any farther away. When God forgives, He forgets. In order to properly tap into Jesus’ forgiveness we have to model God’s forgiveness for his people and forget our sins as he forgets them.
But lets think for a minute, we all know that God is all knowing, He knows everything. Ok, if we ask God to forgive our sins and we do not forget them, are we capable of knowing something God does not know, I do not think so.
Tapping into the power of Forgiveness means to forgive yourself. Freedom from sin is found when you forgive yourself for your past. I have seen people get stuck at this point. They know that Jesus died for there sins and that they are forgiven, but that is it, they never forgive themselves.
Nick is one of my best friends that I made from going through Teen Challenge. We went through the whole program together. We both graduated and did an ETP, at different TC’s. But unlike Nick I have been drug free since I went into the program and he started to use drugs again and just finished doing about a year in jail. Why is it that I stayed focus and He didn’t? Unforgiveness from his past life, Nick never forgave himself for a series of things one of the biggest things was his best friend dying when he was 14 years old from a heroin overdose. Nick would not let go and let God work in him and he went back out into the world only to overdose and literally die but was brought back to life. Soon after that episode he was arrested and sentenced to do a year in jail for robbing a purse.
Unforgiveness will bring you back to your old life faster than you can imagine. Unforgiveness causes past pain to dwell in your heart where forgiveness unlocks past pain and brings healing to that pain.
Not forgiving yourself for you past sins, will affect your future success as a Christian.
Understanding the power of forgiveness helps us see through our imperfections, because we can’t all be perfect like me!
I saw a bumper sticker, it says, Christians are not perfect, just forgiven!
Because Jesus forgives us, we are able to forgive ourselves.
Living a forgiven life means freedom from your past and power to be successful over sin in your future. The enemy does not want you to grasp the power of forgiveness, because every time you ask for forgiveness you are acknowledging Jesus died for your sins and the enemy hates that and you are acknowledging what you did wrong so that you can make up a plan of attack for the next time you are tempted to do that same sin you already have done your homework so that you can have victory over that sin and there is nothing more the enemy hates, than a man or women who has victory over sin!
In his book. LEE: THE LAST YEARS, Charles Bracelen Flood reports that after the Civil War, Robert E. Lee visited a Kentucky lady who took him to the remains of a grand old tree in front of her house. There she bitterly cried that its limbs and trunk had been destroyed by Federal artillery fire. She looked to Lee for a word condemning the North or at least sympathizing with her loss.
After a brief silence, Lee said, “Cut it down, my dear Madam, and forget it.” It is better to forgive the injustices of the past, than to allow them to remain, let bitterness take root and poison the rest of your life.
Dwelling in your past sins will block what God wants to do in your future so it is imperative that you tap into the power of forgiveness today in order to receive God’s forgiveness for all your sins and next to forgive yourselves, so that you can have power to build a brighter future for your lives!
2. The Power of Forgiveness Enables God To See Potential In Us!
Jesus saw potential in the forgiven women, even though she was at the lowest point of her life. Basically she was on death row and Jesus still gave her a chance. Why do you think that is?
Let’s see the Bible says, “yet when we where still sinners, Christ died for us.”
This verse states that God sees potential in people to believe and receive Jesus’ forgiveness, even though they are still in their lives of sin and want nothing to do with God.
Through Jesus’ death and resurrection, He has made atonement for all the past, present, and future sins of the world. His sacrifice the Bible says “has made perfect forever those who are being made holy” (Hebrews 10:14).
God knows that we have the potential to seek Jesus for the forgiveness of our sins. This in turn enables God to see potential in us even though we were or are still in sin. God gives us a second chance at life. Every time we ask for forgiveness, we are getting a second chance to do what we did wrong, right.
This second chance is called grace. That is how God’s grace works. His grace I like to say is a second chance that last forever.
Let me give you an example of seeing potential. I am going to use my car I bought as an example. I am a Volkswagen lover. My favorite car is the VW Corrado. Last summer my goal was to buy one. Every one that was for sale I wanted to buy it, so on my hunt I was at an auto body shop and there was a Corrado in the parking lot pretty messed up. What happened was a tree fell on the car and all across the hood and the front fenders were the engraving of a tree branch. I located the kid and told him I was interested in the car even though it was all messed up, he probably thought I was crazy. You see I didn’t see the car all messed up how it was; I saw the car shining like it was brand new like how it will be when it is finished. So I met him to drive the car and we went to start it and it wouldn’t start. I was still determined to buy this car even though I could not drive it. My dad had to talk me out of buying the car that day until he fixed the problem, which he did and I bought the car in the next few days. My dad thought I was crazy, buying the car with all the problems it had. So I brought the car to my house and find a few more problems, like a tremendously loud noise every time I turned, plus other things. Every time my dad and I would come home from work, I would mess with him and tell him, that I have the nicest car in the world, and he would make fun of me, and say you are dreaming. That all ended this summer when I came home from college and saw it. He said, Jess you did, you blessed that mess!
I saw potential in that car when nobody, else did, when it was at it’s lowest point of its life as a car I said that car has endless possibly and with a little work and a lot of money, it came to pass.
It is the same way with God, when he sees us, He sees what we can do right, not what we did wrong.
God always gives his people the benefit of the doubt. Like we saw in the story of the forgiven women, the law said she should die, the Pharisees wanted her dead, but Jesus pulled a few strings and saved her life. Usually the majority wins, but God is the exception to that rule. Remember God plus one is always the majority in any situation. You can God can do anything together. The key is to believe that you have the potential accomplish anything you want. God is voting for you. You have to believe in yourself and leave the rest up to God, He will take you places you would never believe and give you things that you always wanted.
Jesus never once focused on the Forgiven woman’s sin, but he did focus on saving her physical life as well as showing her that there is forgiveness for her sins and a new life that follows.
This concept of God seeing potential in us is an awesome idea, think about it, for everything we did wrong in life, He still says I love you and I trust you with my Son, Jesus, to spread the gospel as far as you can. He trusts drug addicts, thieves, adulteress people, with such a precious thing as the creator of the world, I think He is crazier than we are!
This is a pretty big responsibility, He wants us to take on the world with the gospel message that has the power to heal the sick, break the bondages of addiction, restore broken marriages, and save people from going to hell.
Jesus does not see our life of sin, but our life of victory. He gives us a second chance, when we burned out all other resources and people here on this earth.
I promise you, if you seek God with all your heart, He will restore your life to better than it ever was before.
God is giving each one of you a second chance; He sees potential in all of you to do what ever you want to do in life. Start believing in yourself and the power of God’s word and you will go far in life.
I want you to take full advantage of God, that sounds pretty weird, but what I am trying to say is not understanding and applying the potential God has in you, can limit what God can do for you!
Joel Osteen says in his book, what you receive is directly connected to how you believe and what you expect. If you want God to do the extraordinary, then you must start believing Him for bigger things.”
I believe that a lot of the time God works in the boundaries that we set up for our lives. I am not saying, He cannot work outside of them, because He is God, He can do whatever he wants. I am saying that we have the capability to limit what He can do in our lives.
The forgiven woman could have walked away at the end when everybody else was leaving, but she choose to stay. If she where to have left she would have been running from what Jesus wanted to do in her life. She would have never known that there was forgiveness for her sins and a chance to start over. She would have been limiting what God wanted to do in her life, but she decided to stay and face her sin face to face with Jesus right by her side.
I use to have the mentality that I was never going to change; I thought I was called to be a drug addict for the rest of my life. I was proud of my calling at times when I was running the streets, I use to make more money than your average person who worked a decent 9 to 5 job, but there was one little problem I was spending all my money on drugs and I was always at risk of going to jail. But I still believed that I would never change, life kept getting worse and I thought this was the hand I was dealt and I have to play it out till I die. I came to the conclusion that this is all I know how to do, so I might as well do it to the best of my ability and my best ended me up in jail.
My attitude on life was limiting what God wanted to do in my life because it closed my heart to the gospel and the power of God when people where reaching out to me. So when I went to jail, I had an opportunity to reflect on my life. I said to myself there has to be a better way to live. Having this new attitude, I believe jump-started my miracle in which my dad came to court on my behalf with an application for Teen Challenge and they suspended my jail time and told me to complete the program. Little did they or even me know that God was about to knock my socks off! About six months into the program, I surrendered my life to Christ and have been following His calling ever since. Once I stopped limiting God with my thinking, he opened doors in my life that no man can shut, and gave me opportunities that you would not believe if I where to tell you.
God sees all the potential in the world in each one of you, He believes in you more than you will ever be able to believe in yourself.
You have to form an attitude that reflects God’s feelings for His people. If we thought of ourselves a quarter of what God thinks of us, we would be on stoppable in succeeding in our lives.
Remember, people will not believe in you until you believe in yourself!
I think the apostle, Paul, has something to say about potential in his letter to the Philippians. He says, “Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (Phil 1:6).
Paul is saying that we as believers are works in progress. The work that Jesus started in us because the potential God has for us is going to be completed one day. God obvious knows that we will mess up on the way to completion but he still says that you are going to finish; you are going to make it in life. You can graduate this program, you can get a good job, you can have a family, you can do what ever you put your mind to!
Our God is not a half way God. He does not start something that He will not finish, that would cause his character to be questioned. The Bible says, that when we remain faithless, He is still faithful.
Due to the power of Forgiveness God is able to see potential in all of us, but He does not stop there, He will also empower us to leave our lives of sin.
3. The Power of Forgiveness Empowers Us!
Here I want to focus on Jesus’ last recorded words to the Forgiven woman in this passage.
The story goes, after Jesus straightened up and asked her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?" She said, No one, sir.” Jesus then says, “Then neither do I condemn you," Jesus declared. "Go now and leave your life of sin."
The first statement I want to talk about is where Jesus says that He does not condemn her. Like I said before the law condemned her, the Pharisees condemned her, but Jesus forgave her.
The Greek for the word condemn is Katakrino. This word suggests to hand down a judgment or to deliver a sentence to someone. According to the law, this woman deserves to be punished, but “Jesus informed her that she was not judicially sentenced.”
One scholar said, “Jesus was simply making a declaration that since his kingdom was not of this world, so he would not assume the office of a temporal judge” (Bloomfield).
Because we are not condemned, we have power to live a life that pleases God.
The second statement I want to examine in this passage is “Go now and leave your life of sin.”
The word “GO,” in Greek is “POREUOMAI.” The type of verb is an imperative command. The significance of an imperative mood verb is that it expresses a command to the hearer (which is the woman and us) to perform a certain action by the order and authority of the one commanding, which in our case is Jesus.
Jesus was not just saying, if you feel like it, leave, but he was saying Go (get out of my face), it is extremely important that you follow my directions and leave your old lifestyle. The word in context literally means to continue on one’s journey and to order one’s life. Jesus was commanding her to redirect her journey in life so that she would not fall into her old ways of sin.
The third word I want to look at is the word for SIN. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”
The word in the Greek is “HAMARTANO.” Again it is an imperative verb, which stresses the importance of performing a certain action by the order and authority of the one commanding.
The word for sin means to miss the mark, wander from the path of righteousness and to violate God’s law.
Jesus is commanding her not do disobey God’s law and calls her to leave her life of sin to pursue a life of righteousness.
I read a scholar’s point of view on this statement and he said, “There is an implied rebuke of her past life, a charge to repent and live a better life and an opening to the door of hope in case she listened to His words.”
Jesus was telling her that he was not concerned with everything that just took place, but what he was concerned with, is what her next move in life was going to be.
This is exactly how Christ feels about you; He does not care about what you did in your past, but what you are going to do in your future.
Jesus is commissioning here to leave her life of sin.
Jesus would not be telling her to leave her old lifestyle if it was not possible. If we carefully listen to the words of Christ her, we will see that it is so important that we repent now. Repentance will open the door of opportunity in your life so that you can grow and change and become the best woman of God you possibly can be.
Jesus wanted her to know that the past was in the past and this moment is new.
Jesus was able to see potential in her because she had the option to change and leave her sin or she could of went right back to her sin and you never know what could of happened the next time she got caught, maybe that day Jesus would have been somewhere else and they might of went through with stoning her to death.
I think the word “Now” also is important. He says Go Now; He does not say Go, tom or next week and leave your life of sin. Jesus says Go now, it is so important that we give Christ our lives. He wants and knows best for us even when it does not make sense to us.
Jesus forgave her but He commanded her to change her ways. His forgiveness is free, but it cost a lifetime of service.
Tapping into the power of forgiveness will empower you to graduate this program and establish a new life for yourself.
In CLOSING, I want to share the story of a girl named Phyllis. When Phyllis was 16 years old she got pregnant and had to leave her high school. Her dreams were shattered and she was heart broken. She rented a small apartment to live and raise her son. She soon realized that it was not going to work out. She did not have enough money, so she had to get on welfare. She was barely surviving in poverty, defeat, and despair. Phyllis refused to live in this lifestyle. She wanted to change. She said enough is enough. I refuse to pass this lifestyle down to my children. She said, I want to fulfill my God given destiny. I am going to be the person God wants me to be. She rose us and started to believe for bigger and better things. She got rid of her former thoughts of defeat and failure. She did her part and God did his.
Phyllis got a job at a school cafeteria collecting meal tickets. The job paid minimum wage and was thankful but not satisfied. She knew God had bigger and better things in store for her. So she decided to go back to school and she got her high school diploma. She still wasn’t satisfied. She decided to go to college, so she worked all day and went to school at night. In four years, she graduated from college with honors. She still wasn’t satisfied and went back to college and got her masters degree. Today is not on welfare anymore, because she decided that her past was not going to get the best of her. Now, she is the principal of a school that is in the same district of the school she worked collecting tickets in the cafeteria. She said “I went from welfare to faring well.”
The bottom line is that she understood that she had potential and to go along with that potential she had the power of God on her side, which gave her the strength to leave her old lifestyle and to pursue her dreams in life.
Like Phyllis and the forgiven woman, we have to understand that this is Jesus commanding us to leave our old lifestyles, not just an ordinary person. He is the creator of the universe. He holds all things together. He was around before the world was formed (Col 1:17).
Tapping into the power of forgiveness protects us from the world’s condemnation and protects us from future judgment of our sins. Living a life plugged into the power of God will wash all your sins away and enable you to forgive yourself for your past.
Tapping into the power of forgiveness enables God to see potential in you. Properly understanding and applying this truth should motivate you to be the best you can possibly be to the Glory of God. Remember people will not believe in you until you believe in yourself. As long as you have God on your side you have nothing to worry about. God sees all the potential in the world in each one of you. You are all his trophies of Grace.
Tapping into the power forgiveness will empower you to put the past in the past and move on with your future. Jesus is commanding all us to Get as far away from our past lifestyles as we possibly can. I believe that He meant this statement so much that He was willing to dies for you and me.
Alter call for each one of the main points and then pray!!!
