Category / Inspiration

by M. Renee Byrd

The Forgiveness Factor (Part 1)

The Forgiveness Factor

In Times Like These

We live in a time when the “Us Against Them” philosophy is prevalent and growing. Whether it’s one yelling “Yes we can” to another screaming, “Make America great again!” Or whether one is for or against abortion, round or flat earth, climate change, black or blue lives matter, pro-vax vs. anti-vax, or democrat vs. republican. If you can name it, people will be at each other’s throats about it. This contentiousness is not just a difference of opinion; there is an overwhelming intolerance and hatred for any ideas foreign to our own. Many of our political leaders hold grudges and refuse to work together on common goals that will ultimately help the country.

Most importantly, for our purposes here, believers reject each other for differences in belief or for others’ weaknesses and shortcomings. Instead of being prayerful and remorseful for the failures of our brothers and sisters, we deem them unworthy of our Savior’s grace, love, acceptance, and forgiveness. This attitude is not only prevalent with believers, but there is also a distinct lack of compassion, understanding, and tolerance toward anything or anyone not like ourselves.

A Lesson from the Osama Bin Laden Situation

The night the US military forces caught and killed Osama Bin Laden, Abba taught me a valuable lesson about how He sees all people. When the local news announced what happened, I began to dance around singing the Wicked Witch song from the original Wizard of Oz musical. “Ding dong, the witch is dead! Which old witch? The wicked witch!” In the aftermath of his killing, thousands gathered around the US Capitol building, cheering and celebrating. I considered driving down there since I didn’t live far.

As I continued celebrating, the Breath of Truth tugged at my heart and said, “What are you doing?” I began to feel convicted right away. “I’m celebrating the demise of an evil man.” I retorted slowly, realizing that Abba was not pleased. He responded, “Do you think that’s what I want?” My shoulders dropped, “No?” I answered meekly. Then I began to understand that while his death kept him from killing any more people, celebrating it was unacceptable for a believer in Yeshua to do.

Later, He showed me the verse in Ezekiel 33: 11 – 12 – “As surely as I live, declares Adonai YAHWEH, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked should turn from their wicked ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! For why should you die, oh house of Israel?”

Bin Laden had, as many believe, masterminded the most significant attack on US soil, and many in America wanted vengeance, not just justice. But those of us who love and serve the Almighty are taught to live by different standards. We are not allowed to hold grudges or seek revenge. Nor are we encouraged to harbor resentment and secret wishes for the demise of our enemies. The bottom line is that every individual, no matter what they’ve done, is loved by our Father and is a candidate for repentance and forgiveness. And we, as His ambassadors, should remain neutral by putting ourselves in a position to minister the gospel to them no matter who they are or what they have done. We cannot do that if we are at odds with them because of something they’ve done to offend us or if they have a different and opposing opinion than us. 

What if?

What if we were on vacation and while lying on the beach, the Holy Breath told us to get up and go to a building where an active serial killer was hiding to give him a specific message from Him? What if he received the Word and repented? Or what if our Father led us to mass murderers while they were still active to give them the message of salvation, redemption, forgiveness, and deliverance? Are we willing to lay aside our offenses and fears to save their eternal lives, even though they are actively taking lives? The world will tell us to take a gun or call the police on them, which is understandable, but how our Father does things is not how the world does things. 

There is an example of this very thing in scripture. Paul, while his name was still Saul, had conspired with other religious leaders in Israel to commit premeditated, cold-blooded first-degree murder on those called Christians back then. He was actively hunting down men, women, and children to have them stoned to death for their beliefs. See Acts 7: 54- 8: 3. During this time, Yeshua appeared to him and took his sight so that Paul would see the error of his ways. He then told Ananias to go to him to help him restore his physical sight after Yeshua opened his spiritual eyes. See Acts 9: 10-19. Our Savior called Paul, forgave him, and changed his heart so much that he wrote the majority of the Renewed Testament of the Bible. He had one of His trusted servants Ananias, go to talk to him even though he could have ended up being one of his targets. What Yeshua did then, He wants to do today.

Our Forgiveness, Serious Business

Forgiveness is a necessary, integral part of a believer’s life. We cannot live a victorious life without it. Our sin separates us from the life of Elohim and restarts the process of death in our lives. But as the Apostle John told us in 1 John 1: 9, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Our asking for cleansing and forgiveness should be daily habits. Just as dirt builds up on our bodies daily, sin accumulates in our spiritual lives. If we do not wash our bodies regularly, we will begin to have an odorous stench. And if we are not forgiven and cleansed from sin daily, we will also start to give off a spiritual odor. Through His forgiveness, we are injected with His Life. That life reverses the death brought into our lives by sin. Only with the supernatural Life of Yahweh can we overcome the natural and supernatural obstacles that arise due to disobedience, transgression, and sin.

Our Forgiveness Links us to God’s Forgiveness

The forgiveness we give to others links us directly to the forgiveness we receive from our Heavenly Father. While being forgiven of our sins is a beautiful gift from our Father, it is only one side of the coin. One side represents Abba’s glorious forgiveness to us; the other side, however, represents our forgiveness of others. Both sides must operate in our lives for the coin of salvation and restoration to work. When we stand at the gate of heaven and produce our “coin” of salvation for entry into eternity if one side is present, but the other is not, the coin will be rejected as a counterfeit. One side only works with the other. Yeshua, when teaching His disciples to pray during the Sermon on the Mount, told them to pray, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” (Matthew 6:14). He went on to say in Matthew 9: 12, 14, “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive yours.”

Not forgiving others, including our brothers and sisters, is more significant than many of us may understand. Our Father wants us to pardon the wrong things others have done to us so that He can forgive the wrongs we have done against Him. However, we will not be forgiven of our wrongs if we will not forgive others of theirs. Once again, if we have not forgiven everything done against us, none of our sins are forgiven. Yeshua is clear in His wording. A lack of forgiveness hinders our healing, deliverance, and triumph. We have difficulty moving forward and are stuck in our present situations because we have not forgiven others.

Say this aloud with me:

“My forgiveness is serious business. If I do not forgive the harm people have done to me, my Father will not forgive my sins against Him and others. If I don’t forgive them, He won’t forgive me. If I don’t release them, He won’t release me. So, for me to walk in triumph; for me to be healed; for me to get a breakthrough; for me to get delivered; and for me to grow to maturity, I must be forgiven. But, for me to be forgiven, I must first forgive. As Yeshua has forgiven me, I will forgive others. And as I forgive others, my Father and my King will forgive me.”

We should continue to say this until Father makes it alive in our hearts and releases us to move forward. 

Read Matthew 18: 21-35; Luke 6: 37-42; John 20: 21-23, and Romans 12: 14-21.

Prayer:

Dear Heavenly Father,

Thank you for the gift of your Son, Yeshua, who died so that I may live. He never sinned, yet He died for those who sin regularly. He took my sin so that I could be forgiven. 

Abba, forgiveness and compassion are part of Your nature. You are compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, and abound in love and faithfulness.  You forgive sin to a thousand generations.  I lift my hands and praise You for Your goodness, mercy, and love. I praise Your name for the incredible gift of Your forgiveness toward me through Your Son, Yeshua ha Mashiach (Jesus, the Messiah). HalleluYah.  I am forgiven, for you have forgiven me.  I am released of what I owe because You have liberated me.

Father, I pray that Your Holy Breath will grant me repentance.  I pray that He would create the desire and power in me to forgive others as You have forgiven me. Write these Words in my heart and mind that I will not sin against You. 

So, since You have forgiven me, I will forgive those who have intentionally and unintentionally sinned against or harmed me. You require that I release them of what they owe me.  I call them by their name.  Abba, I forgive . . . I release them. I let them go.  I give You my right for vengeance.  I will not hold it against them.  I bow down and put my feelings toward them on Your altar. I cast my concern for justice and vengeance toward You because You care about me. Like Yeshua prayed for His enemies while He was on the cross, I pray for those who have harmed me, “Forgive them Father for they don’t know what they are doing.” Release them from their sin and let them go.

Forgive me for not forgiving them. Wash away the stain of sin and unforgiveness from my life with the blood Yeshua shed for me. Cleanse me of all wickedness and sin.  Create in me a heart and mind that forgives.  I have forgiven them; please forgive me.

Thank you, my King, for hearing my prayer.

I pray all these things in the name of Yeshua ha Mashiach. (Jesus, the Messiah). Amen!

by M. Renee Byrd

The Passage of Time: God vs. Man: Part I

Measuring Time according to Psalm 90:4

Scripture tells us that the way our Father does things is not the way we do things, nor does He think the way we do (Isaiah 55: 8-9).  This principle is apparent when we look at Psalm 90, the only psalm written by Moses. This whole psalm is insightful and is well worth our time to read again and again, having a depth of insight into the mind and ways of our Father. Specifically in verses 3-6, Moses was discussing the speed at which a person’s lifetime passes before the Creator of mankind versus how it passes to mankind themselves. He said to the Father:   

3 You return man to dust, saying, “Return, O sons of mortals.”

4 For in Your sight a thousand years are but a day that passes,  

or a watch of the night.

5 You whisk them away in their sleep; they are like the new grass of the morning—

6 in the morning it springs up new, but by evening it fades and withers.

Within these four verses Moses gave us an equation that has always intrigued me: one day = one thousand years.  He is letting us see how our lives pass by, from our Father’s point of view. In the psalm Moses explains that we are like the new grass that sprouts in the morning only to wither and fade by the evening.  Indeed, from the simple equation Moses gave us, we can calculate the following table:

TABLE: The Passage of Time: God versus Man

To help bring this into perspective, let’s look at it like this:

  • It takes a couple about 9 months to conceive, carry, and give birth to a child.  This is about 1 minute to Elohim about the time it takes us to pop a bag of popcorn in the microwave.
  • If a child becomes an adult at 21 years, then it takes them about 30 minutes to grow up before the Most High.
  • If on average, human beings have 70 to 80 years of life, then we have a little under 2 hours to live God-time (GT).  That is about the time it takes for us to watch a movie or two episodes of a TV show.
  • The United States of America is about 1.8 days old GT, a little less than a two-day weekend.
  • Israel is about 3000 years old which makes it 3 days old GT, the length of a holiday weekend.
  • China has a recorded history of approximately 5000 years which makes it about as old as a typical five-day work week GT.
  • The continent of Africa, considered to be the cradle of humanity, is about 2 billion years old.  That would make it 55.5 centuries old GT.
  • The earth is said to be 4.5 billion years old which makes it 125 centuries old GT.

From Everlasting to Everlasting

While all of this blows my mind as I continue to consider it, these times are minuscule when compared to Elohim Himself. He exists outside of time as we know it; He comes from everlasting and continues to everlasting (Psalm 90:2).

This concept can be a little difficult to fathom so let’s look at it this way: Consider an extra-long dining table that can seat 20 people.  There are no chairs, so we go stand beside it near the middle of the table. One end of the table represents the beginning of time when our solar system came into being.  The other table end represents the end of time when the earth will be destroyed by fire (Zephaniah 1: 14-18).  

The Creator of our universe can take in the whole of time from one end of the table to the other all at once, but He is not confined by it like we are.  His existence goes from before the beginning of the table “the beginning of time” and goes past the other end of the table “the end of time.”  His existence keeps on going past both ends of the table forever. He just keeps going “from everlasting” one way “to everlasting” the other way.  Can you picture it?   He exists now.  He always was before time began. He always will be after time ends. May our Father open our eyes so we can see and understand Him for who He is. He has been and will continue to be our dwelling place throughout all generations (Psalm 90:1).

Why is this important for us to understand?  Why did Moses put this in his Psalm of Praise?  There are many reasons I believe, but we are going to look at two.  The first one comes from verse 12 of Psalm 90 where he prayed, “teach us to number our days.” The second comes from the last verse when Moses asks Elohim to “establish the works of our hands.” We will look at the first one today and cover the second one in part II of this article.

Numbering Our Days

From the time of Adam to the time of Noah, human beings had a lifespan of about 1000 years or 1 day GT.  After the flood, their lives were shortened to about 10 hours GT. During our lifetime that time again has been shortened to no more than 3 hours GT. Moses writing Psalm 90, wanted us to make to most of the time we have.  He asked Elohim to help us give a number to each of our days so that “we would have a heart of wisdom.” In essence, he wanted us to have a count down so we would know how much time we have left to accomplish what we were put on earth to do.

If we have been given 80 years and 80 years equals 29,200 days, then we can calculate approximately how many days we have left to fulfill our destiny.  Let’s say someone is 35 years old.  We multiply 35 times 365 days per year, and we get 12,775 days that they have been living so far.  Then we subtract 12,775 days from 29,200 days, and we get approximately 16,426 days left.  If your eyes are starting to glaze over do not worry, I’ve created a matrix that calculates the days for every age from one to 100.  You can find it at the bottom of this article.

We can use the number of days left to “count down” our remaining days as Moses prayed for us to do. And using this wisdom, we can “count the cost” of the things we want to accomplish in life, calculate roughly how long those things will take, and then measure that number against our approximate life timeframe.

These calculations give us an idea of what we need to do to get our plans accomplished before it is too late.  Counting the cost with our time is not about how long we have to live, it is about making the most of the little time Father has given us, however long that may be. Numbering our days is like making a budget to manage how we spend our time.  If we make a budget for our time, we are less likely to waste it or spend it on worthless things only to run out of time before we accomplish our destiny.

The parable of the talents tells us of a wealthy man who gave his employees money while he went on a journey (Matthew 25: 14-30). Those who managed their money wisely were rewarded. They increased their original investments, were congratulated, and given more for their efforts. Maybe you’ve heard the adage that time is money.  Here it is literally the case.  Our time is part of our currency.  And like we do with our money; we can budget and manage our time to our benefit or to our detriment.  Let us take the time to number our days to establish a wise heart.

Prayer:

Father in Heaven,

Thank you for revealing how time passes in Your kingdom compared to our own.

Open our eyes so we may understand it more clearly and then apply this understanding to our lives.  

Teach us to number our days so that one day when we stand before you, we can present you with a heart of wisdom. Give us the mindset and desire to make the most of every opportunity and use each day wisely.  Place these principles in our hearts and write them in our minds (Hebrews 10:16) so that we through the power of Your Holy Breath will live in a way that pleases You and be living letters that the world can read.   

Forgive us for the times we have wasted and mismanaged the time we have been given here on earth.

Lead us and work through us to establish the work of our hands.  We offer what little time we have to Your will and to the establishing of Your Kingdom.

Use Your mighty hand and strong arm to accomplish through us the good works that You planned in advance for us to do (Ephesians 2:10). We are Your workmanship fearfully and wonderfully made in Your image. You do great things, so through You and with You, we do great things as well. Make the things You do through us endure past our fleeting lives to touch the lives of those who come after us on earth and into eternity to come.

In the name of our King, Your Son, who is at Your right-hand right now interceding for us to come into the fulness of our destiny in you. 

In the name that makes a way through the desert, through the mountains, through the wilderness, and over every hill and valley. 

In the name that we love, cherish, and call on in times of trouble:

Yeshua ha Mashiah (Jesus, the Messiah)

Amen!

Number Our Days Matrix