When someone asks if God no longer forgives; Be the one who corrects him immediately:

When someone asks if God no longer forgives; Be the one who corrects him immediately:

As I had written about the young woman who was in an addict recovery facility.  She sat beside me on the porch steps of my first session as chaplain with a question that floored me then.  She said; “Hi my name is Mary and I’m HIV positive.”  Then she told me that there are three things you cannot be forgiven for and I’ve done all three.  “Why should I think your being here will make a difference?”

I held her saying I loved her, and that wasn’t true; she was already forgiven.  Until her release and eventual death she became one person who assisted me during prayer services.  I found later she had full-blown AIDS.  My quiet response was thanking the Holy Spirit for providing this ministry to save her from hell.  

Because of this type of false pretense that so many false prophets seem to throw at people who are in a no-return situation they will preach a message that will almost definitely keep a soul on a downward path and lose their soul to a devil induced person.  

How many people are ignorant of the reason Christ Incarnated himself?  It is up to us, the chosen ministers of God’s plan to save sinners, to find and quickly assure them that God is constantly searching for sinners to show them his undying love and bring them back to his grace.  

If any of us falls into a situation where one person who has been told the same story as the woman in the first paragraph, count your blessing that the Holy Spirit has sent you to be the savior of his/her immortal soul; that is what Jesus told his disciples before he ascended into heaven.  “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.  And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.”  (Mt 28: 19 - 20).

What you are teaching to unbelievers is the Truth.  God wants everyone, especially sinners, to be saved from the evil of sin and come home to be with him forever.  If you need further proof of his searching for us when we fall away from grace, read the “Hound of Heaven.”  There is no place that sinners can hide when the Lord seeks his lost child until he finds the one whom he created and makes a mistake; or more than one.

Of all the different facets of ministry I have been involved with this one of finding and correcting a lie someone told her.  If we are sent to bring one lost soul back to God, we are then doing what Jesus told his disciples before his Ascension.  We are the hands and ministers of Christ reaching into a world of so much evil that has imprisoned people’s hearts.    

Ralph B. Hathaway