I am enjoying a hot cup of Door County Peanut Butter Crunch Coffee and some banana bread fro my breakfast. This is being sent to you from my small duck boat this morning. I am experiencing the brisk October wind today and this coffee is much needed.
Yesterday I needed and I emphasize the word "Needed" to clean out our garage a little, ( A lot) . I heated the garage and went about tossing out things that were there and definitely not needed. At one time it was thought that they were worth saving. But to be honest that pile of clutter would never be used by me or anyone else. It was time to go and make more room for the vehicles when the snow and icy weather hit very soon.
James 1:14-15 But each person is tempted when lured and enticed by his own desire.Then desire when it has been conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown, leads to death.
There is one more large item that needs to go. It is an old antique gas stove/oven that dates back to 1939. It was intended to be restored and placed in a kitchen that I was building in our basement. We found out that the stove weighs a ton and it will not make the turn in the 1st floor hallway into the basement. We are lucky to get a washer or dryer down those stairs. But we have hung onto that thing for about twenty years thinking we would do something with it somehow. Someway or somehow never showed their heads around the stove.
Friends it was foolish to keep that stove in a garage that could always use more space. It was always in the way and it did keep me from using other things in the garage at times because I just didn't want to move things around the stove. This weekend it will be gone. It has held us back too many times.
I am going to equate this old "stove anchor" to forgiveness. When we hang on to the bitterness of not forgiving ourselves or others we carry a weight that holds us back from many things which would be good for us. One of the main things that carrying this weight does, is it hold us back from really experiencing God's love. When we hold a grudge we are in sin and God often holds back His blessings since we are truly not loving our neighbor. We are not loving our enemies and if we aren't forgiving ourselves we are not loving His creation as He commands us to do. We find ourselves spiritually dead an unable to serve God.
So I am asking for you to search your soul today ad if you are harboring the inability to forgive, ask the Holy Spirit to help you with the strength to do so. That grudge you are carrying is a weight to your soul and it is time for it to go.
Go ahead and live the full life today. Forgive! You forgive as much as you desire to. It's up to you. Go all the way.
Marty
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