The level of intimacy we experience in our relationship with God is in direct proportion to the level of forgiveness we show to others.  Pastor Ford will explain that God doesn’t want us to come to worship, thinking that we’re communicating with and worshipping Him, when we have something in our heart against the person sitting next to us.

Pastor Ford will remind us today that we should not let ourselves be impeded in our healing from past hurts because we want to know why someone would hurt us in the way they did.  We often ask why did they do it?  We have to realize that we may never find out why they did what they did.  And often people who do things to us and don’t even know why they did them. So, we shouldn’t let that question hold us back from getting past the hurt.

When we’ve been hurt and we realize that what our offenders meant for evil, God actually meant for good, then we understand the purpose of our pain.  We can see that those who do evil towards us don’t control our lives by anything that they can do to us. Instead, God controls the outcome and intends for us to go through certain things so we can become more like He wants us to be.

As we continue to look at forgiveness and how the story of Joseph unfolds in the Old Testament, we’ll see how he reminded his offenders of God’s sovereignty in his life.  He said, “You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.” So, Pastor Ford will explain that Joseph was essentially saying—what you meant as a stumbling block, God meant as a stepping stone.

When God allows challenging circumstances to enter our lives He’s probing our faith. Those challenges are designed to bring out something in us, that we don’t even know we have, until that circumstance we face activates it. We’ll see how this happened for the disciples through the challenge they faced in John 6, on today’s Treasured Truth.

What happened to you may have been completely devastating and the day it happened might have seemed like the darkest day you’ve lived through.  But no matter how difficult it was, Pastor Ford wants to remind you that God is still alive and He is going to work in whatever your situation is, so that you bring something out of it that you didn’t have when you went into it—something you never would have had if you had not gone through it.

Today we will look at one of the greatest examples of a believer giving forgiveness.  He’s someone who emulates our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and who deals with something that was extremely devastating to him. Join us to find out which person from the Old Testament Pastor Ford describes as such a great forgiver.

Pastor Ford will explain today that practicing forgiveness is like we’re saying, “I will not let that wrong perpetrated against me define my life.” Forgiveness is releasing the person who has wronged us and in doing so, freeing ourselves from the bondage of unforgiveness.

Forgiving can be so hard, especially when the wrong done to us seems unforgivable. But when we look at Jesus at Calvary, whatever was done to us was not as bad as what was done to Him on the cross. And He said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!” If Jesus sought forgiveness for his offenders, so can we.

As we begin to take an in depth look at the process of forgiveness, Pastor Ford will describe how, in one concise verse found in Luke 23, Jesus tells us we can forgive the unforgivable. If we utilize the model Jesus lived for us to follow, we can forgive those individuals who have wronged us. Find out more on today’s Treasured Truth.