This Ole House By Steve Lombardo

People carry it around, and I can't articulate to you in words what forgiveness is, but forgiveness is divine. The love that's required, the humility that's required to forgive unconditionally, and that's why I trust Christ, he said. I mean, Blinky understood the pain of life. His son was lost. Son was murdered, and he's getting old. His hook, it was not as strong as it used to be, but you know what was even stronger? The ability to forgive the person that had done the unthinkable to him. And he did it because Christ lives in him. If you have Christ, the outer self is gonna waste away, but inwardly, you can continue to be strong. You can hit your prime when you're stepping into heaven. [00:34:31] (51 seconds)  #DivineForgiveness

But he says, we have this treasure in jars of clay to show the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. So that no matter how fragile we are, the power of God can work through us. The apostle Paul was bent over. He he couldn't see well. He probably was up here preaching like this, and and the people called him on that. And there's some super apostles in the church that you're listening to this guy. He can he he he can barely get out the door. He can barely preach a sermon, and and the apostle Paul is saying, it's not dependent. You're all you're seeing the wrong things. The power of god is in the message, not in my body. [00:15:29] (37 seconds)  #PowerInWeakness

He said, I've always said this. Since that day that god did that, the power of forgiveness is more powerful than my left hook. And I always had a good one, Joe. He did. He's a professional kickboxer, but he's a old man now in his seventies. He said, Joe, the power of forgiveness, it gives you the chance to rekindle the fire. It gives you the opportunity to live life without carrying a heavy yoke on your neck. [00:34:06] (25 seconds)  #ForgivenessOverForce

Though the older older self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. Over about the age of 60, you wanna make that your life verse. You wanna print that baby up. You wanna put it right in the mirror. K? Because when you go in the mirror, you're not gonna see the same person that you saw when you were 25. But this is a great spot for an amen. You're gonna see a more mature believer and follower of Jesus Christ than when you were 25. [00:26:11] (32 seconds)  #RenewedInnerSelf

And so part of the reason that we experience pain and challenges of life, some just with old age, others with wrongs that people have done to us, others with sin that we've committed, gotten ourselves in hot water. All those things that we experience, god asks us to bear the life of Christ in those things so that other people see, that other people believe, that other people can see your testimony that even though if you're you're going through some of the hard stuff that life can throw at you, you're still saying god is good. [00:24:30] (34 seconds)  #LiveYourTestimony

And so just as jars of clay were fashioned by a creator for a specific purpose and yet we're fragile, so are we designed by God and given a body. Praise God. It's awesome. Life is an a a miracle. But we also know the fragility of life. And some of you here, you you can speak to that in your own life, in the life of your family. Life is very fragile. We're jars of clay, and the apostle Paul says this, we have this gospel powerful message of the cross and of God and of salvation. We are holding it in this fragile vessel, a jar of clay. [00:14:44] (44 seconds)  #FragileVesselGospel

And when he said, can I get a hug? I grabbed him and embraced him, and I began to weep. I began to weep. I began to travail, and I began to weep, and it was a holy ghost moment where the spirit of god was moving. And an hour later, he led this man, David, who had killed his son in a prayer to receive Jesus Christ as his lord and savior. [00:33:38] (23 seconds)  #RedemptionMoment

When we preach the gospel to ourselves, we remind ourselves that our salvation is not found in our doing or our earning, but it's found in the accomplished work of Christ on the cross. And this should give us great joy. Because if we've walked with God for some amount of time, we can be tempted to go down the road of religion. Religion says, you do the right things. You say the right prayers. You you earn god's acceptance, that you you earn god's salvation. [00:10:41] (30 seconds)  #GraceNotWorks