| 11.02.08 The Christmas Gift that Money Can't Buy |
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The Christmas Gift that Money Can’t Buy Ephesians 6:1-3 As we approach the Advent season, consider giving someone in your family a gift that they desperately need and only you can give it. It cannot be purchased at a store or ordered off the internet. It can only come from your heart. It is the most valuable gift you can possibly give. “Children, obey your parents because you belong to the Lord, for this is the right thing to do. 2 “Honor your father and mother.” This is the first commandment with a promise: 3 If you honor your father and mother, “things will go well for you, and you will have a long life on the earth.” Ephesians 6:1-3 NLT Forgiveness can only be given to the undeserving. We are to show honor and respect to our parents, not because they always deserve it, but because God commands it. The most honorable thing we can do for our parents is pray for them and forgive them. To honor our parents means we treat them with dignity and mercy even when as adults we have to say “no” or make a decision that they may not like. The most dishonorable thing we Christians can do is to withhold forgiveness from our parents. When we seek revenge we become the victim. We become the prisoner. “Vengeance is having a videotape planted in your soul that cannot be turned off. It plays the painful scene over and over again inside your mind. It hooks you into its instant replays. And each time it replays, you feel the clap of pain again. Lewis Smedes Forgiving is the only way to stop the cycle of unfair pain turning in your memory.” “To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.” Lewis Smedes We cannot help what happened to us in the past but we can choose our attitude about the future. Understand that the family you come from is not nearly as important as the family you are going to have. |