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The Lord's Prayer
Cell Questions
28th June 2009
Forgive our Sins
CELL QUESTIONS
28th June 2009
The Lord's Prayer
Forgive our sins
If forgiveness were a colour what colour do you think it would be, and why?
Are you aware of the depth of your sinful heart and do you regularly confess your sins to God?
Do you struggle to forgive yourself?
Why do you think forgiveness matters?
Without revealing details of someone else's sin, what benefits of forgiveness have you known in your life?
Again, not mentioning names, is there someone you need to forgive?
This seems to be a ‘conditional' prayer. How do you think forgiving others helps us to receive God's forgiveness?
How can we as cell help one another to ‘keep short accounts with God' (and others)?
FORGIVE OUR SINS - A FEW THOUGHTS!
What's wrong with society
There was a series of letters to the Times newspaper about the state of the society and the world. People offered there ideas. The writer and Christian wrote a very brief letter to the paper:
‘What's wrong with society today? I am, Yours sincerely,
G. K. Chesterton.
Forgiveness and the holiness of God
Unless we understand the immense holiness of God we will never fully understand, the depth of our own sinfulness, the enormous sacrifice of Jesus and the greatness of forgiveness which is offered to us in Christ.
Or as a bookmark once proclaimed: ‘Pobodies Nerfect'.
Forgiveness the activity of God throughout history
Following the fall of man, God's aim activity towards man has been that of providing a way of forgiveness for sin and a consequent restoration of our relationship with him. Sin separates us from God (Is. 59:2) and in the OT the sacrificial system was set up to deal with sin. (Lev 4 etc). All this foreshadowed the work of Christ on the Cross His death was the propitiation which dealt with sin and turned away the wrath of God for us. He opened the way back to God for us and forgiveness focuses itself upon his work.
Forgiveness means forgiving self and others
Through Christ God forgives us all our sin, but this is outworked in our forgiving others. Jesus said, forgive others (Mark 11:25, Luke 6:37) as though one was dependent upon the other. How many times are we to forgive? Peter asked, knowing the importance he said 7 times. Jesus replied 70x7 (Mtt 18:21,22).
Forgiveness of others is as much (if not more) for OUR sakes as for the person who needs our forgiveness, because without forgiving, we ourselves cannot move on from the event, WE are stuck and cannot grow.
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