For years now my happy little Saturday morning ritual starts with me rolling out of bed, making coffee, cooking homemade pancakes, and then spending a few hours studying for my Sunday School lesson. When it’s warm, I study on my back porch and enjoy the fresh morning air. In the winter, I spread everything out on my kitchen table and face out my back window. The combination of good food, warm coffee, and time with Jesus is one of my very favorite things in the whole world.
Right now I’m teaching a series on forgiveness, and let me tell you, if we made a list of all the things I’m good at, this would be at the very bottom. God seems to magnify this fault of mine whenever I teach on the subject. It’s only fitting, because nobody wants to learn from a hypocrite. But the two or three times I’ve taught a series on this subject, I find myself struggling with my own ability to forgive, and yet am blessed as I lean on Him more and more to wash me clean and use my faults as another reminder of why I need Jesus so darn badly.
Here’s some verses that have nothing to do with forgiveness, but verses which I’m currently memorizing, and thought I’d share. They’re great encouragement to my heart.
“Jesus replied, ‘You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.”
John 13:7
“For as heaven is higher than earth, so My ways are higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.”
Isaiah 55:9