“A man returned to work in a place from which he had been fired several months previously. A fellow worker remembered how inconsistent he had been in the past but now his work was superior so he asked him, "What happened to make such a difference in you?" The man told this story. In college, initiation into our fraternity required new members to stand in the middle of a long stretch of country road whilst a car drove straight at them. Their challenge was to stand firm until a signal was given to jump out of the way. One dark night I was driving and when the signal was given everyone jumped clear-- except one boy. I left college after that, later married, and had two children but the look on that boy's face as I passed over him stayed in my mind and I became hopelessly inconsistent, moody, and finally a problem drinker. My wife had to work to bring in the only income we had. I was drinking at home one morning when someone rang the doorbell and when I opened the door a woman who seemed strangely familiar stood before me. She explained that she was the mother of the boy I had killed years before and that since that day had hated me and spent agonizing nights rehearsing ways to get revenge. Then she told me of the love and forgiveness that had come when she gave her heart to Jesus Christ. She said, "I have come to let you know that I forgive you and I want you to forgive me." I looked into her eyes that morning and I saw deep in them the permission to be the kind of man I might have been had I not killed that boy. That forgiveness changed my whole life.”
The relationship between man & God was broken by sin and could only be restored through forgiveness. God offered his gift of forgiveness in the person of his son Jesus who was born on the first Christmas morning.
That first Christmas morning, God gave the world the best he had to meet our greatest need – forgiveness – the permission to be the kind of person God intended us to be.
"If our greatest need had been information, God would have sent us an educator. If our greatest need had been technology, God would have sent us a scientist. If our greatest need had been money, God would have sent us an economist, but since our greatest need was forgiveness, God sent us a Saviour."
“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9)
Whatever your year has been like, whatever may unfold in the coming year for you, remember this unchanging truth, forgiveness, from God to you or from you to others, gives you the permission to be the kind of person God intended you to be.
Pastor Richard Doherty
Melton Assembly of God Church