We all know know that traditional marriage vows require a couple to promise, “until death do us part.” But Pastor Ford points out that is so often not the case in marriage today.  As we begin a study in Malachi about divorce, he’ll explain how God established marriage as a permanent institution, with principles that govern it.  And so, it’s just like anything else—if we honor the principles, the principles will honor us.

As we begin this study about false teachers and heresy, Pastor Ford will remind us that we have to know the truth in order to be able to live the truth.  And we live out the truth in direct proportion to the amount of it that we know.  And then he’ll ask this probing question—If we don’t know the truth, how in the world are we ever going to live it?

Did you know there are consequences that you will experience when you don’t forgive?  Today, Pastor Ford will continue to explain the 5 consequences of unforgiveness that can be seen in Acts chapter 15.

Pastor Ford will explain today that generally, reconciliation takes time.  Because God has to heal the person who’s been offended.  And sometime it takes a lot of time for that to happen.  So, if you’ve asked for forgiveness and are waiting for reconciliation to take place, then realize that it may be a while before it happens.

Pastor Ford will ask us to consider this question—Why is it that when someone does something against us, we look at their actions, but when we do something against them, we look at our intentions? And we say we didn’t intend to do it.  Yet, we did it.  So, whether we intended to or not, we hurt them and we have to deal with that, seek their forgiveness and try to reconcile things with them.

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.

Unfortunately, sometimes there is misunderstanding that occurs in the church and in our interaction with each other as believers.  But, even when the messages haven’t been clear, haven’t been concise, or haven’t been communicated well, we have to leave that stuff behind us, grow from it, continue to go forward, and try as much as possible to make things better.

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 there are people who do things to us and they 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 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 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 good, but God meant it for evil.” So Pastor Ford will explain that Joseph was essentially saying, “What you meant as a stumbling block, God meant as a stepping stone.”