It's All About Pardons!

                                    It's All About Pardons!

A Presidential Pardon sounds like good news to a lot of people these days! It is a gift of great value. The right to grant a pardon is given to our Presidents in our Constitution, Article 2, Section 2.

Can it be overturned? No! Not even a unanimous decision of the Supreme Court can overturn a Presidential Pardon! Nor any law or statute passed by Congress.

The only thing that can effect a pardon is that in order to be validated it must be accepted!

In 1830 President Andrew Jackson issued a pardon to George Wilson, a man convicted of a US mail robbery and sentenced to death. He refused it and the Supreme Court determined that a pardon is a deed that requires acceptance from the person pardoned to be confirmed.

Look at what God is offering us:

"I will cleanse them from all their iniquity by which they have sinned against Me, and I will pardon all their iniquities by which they have sinned and by which they have transgressed against Me" (Jeremiah 33:8).

Cleansed and pardoned! Erased forever!

Like our human Presidential Pardons, our pardon from God cannot be overturned-- but the requirement is also that it must be accepted!

Not accepting the pardon makes it null and void - completely invalid, has no legal force, considered as if it never existed.

That means the convict is condemned to face punishment as the law requires! Who would want that?

I have accepted God's forever pardon! (It is also preemptive!) Joyfully! Have you?

As Soon as He Hears!

 "Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you; therefore He will rise up to show you compassion. For the LORD is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for Him. How gracious He will be when you cry for help! As soon as He hears, He will answer you" (Isaiah 30:18-20).

He longs to extend His grace to us! He is eager to listen to us!

He rises up in anticipation of welcoming us - no earthly human Sovereign would ever do that!

Keep the line open -- He is listening for you....right now...

This is our 'strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow'!

The World is Out Of Sync! John Piper

Yes, the world is out of sync with God, but we aren't!

Words from John Piper --

"My feelings are not God.

God is God.

My feelings do not define truth. God's Word is truth.

My feelings are echoes and responses to what my mind perceives. And sometimes -- many times -- my feelings are out of sync with the truth.

When that happens -- and it happens every day, in some measure -- I try not to bend the truth to justify my imperfect feelings, but, rather, I plead with God: 'Purify my perceptions of Your truth and transform my feelings so that they are in sync with the truth.'"

[My prayer, too -- maybe yours?]

Not Just a Chicken

Remember the story of the eagle who was raised by chickens? 

From her nest in the barnyard, she spots an eagle soaring confidently through the clouds. Her heart beats rapidly. "I can do that!" she whispers. The other chickens laugh, but she knows better. She was born for something more. She can soar. She never lost hope, and then, one day, she lifted herself up and began to soar!

We are like that eagle!

Ecclesiastes 3:11 tells us: "He has put eternity in their heart."

Deep down we have a hunch that our ordinary lives can have meaning and purpose and that we were made to know that meaning and purpose -- and we were made to live forever!

Think about Paul's words -

"Therefore we do not lose hope. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes on what is seen, not what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal" (2 Corinthians 4:16-18).

Max Lucado reminds us --

"If life's troubles are momentary, can't we endure them for  just a moment? We can be sick for just a moment...we can be lonely for just a moment...we can be persecuted for just a moment....we can struggle for just a moment...can't we endure any challenge for just a moment?

It's not about us anyway. And it's not about now."

 -- from It's Not About Me

How Peterson paraphrases the passage --

"So we are not giving up.  How could we? Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where God is making new life, not a day goes by without His unfolding grace. These hard times are small potatoes compared  to the coming good times, the lavish celebration  prepared for us. The things we see now are here today, gone tomorrow. But the things we can't see now will last forever."

His Mercy is More!

A convicted and condemned criminal was sent to death for his crimes. He was "guilty as charged!" 

He yearned for mercy.

But who could he ask? Not the judge - he was the one who sentenced him. Not the victims -- they jeered at him and desperately sought revenge. The crowd watching was blood thirsty.  No mercy there.

So, as a last resort,  he turned to the bloodied body of the One who hung on the cross next to his. There was a sign on His cross that said, "King of the  Jews." A strange way to treat your King, he thought. But his time was running out, and that Man did seem different somehow. So he gave it a try.

"Jesus, remember me when You come into Your Kingdom." And he heard the answer, "Truly, today you will be with Me in paradise."

A dying thief on a cross, a pedophile in prison, a murderer on death row -- all can receive mercy. Witnesses say Jeffery Dahmer received Christ's mercy before he was killed. He received Christ as his Savior, read his Bible, confessed his sins will great remorse, and urged other prisoners to do the same.

No one of us beyond the reach of God's mercy. And none of us is  beyond the need for it!

How about the law-abiding citizen sitting on the pew in church? He goes to the altar, also seeking mercy. 

Does it matter to God where we are when we call to Him?

On a cross? On a pew? In a government prison or in our own personal, self-constructed prison?

I think not. We are all sinners who need mercy. "Our sins are so many, His mercy is more!"

He is in reach, right now! And reaching out to you! If you haven't already received His mercy,  ask for it now! Take His mercy and all the other gifts He includes and then tell everyone else!