Our dependable source of accurate information, AI, has informed me that the average person hears between 20,000 to 30,000 words each day. And, that the average person says around 15,000 to 16,000 words each day. I’m not sure how many I have heard or stated today. Or any other day. Though I keep up with word counts for writing assignments and limit the length of my talks depending on the situation, I rarely say or write only three words.
But today, though I am writing more than three words, I do have three words for you to think about.
Chapter Four in my book Things We’ve Handed Down: Twelve Letters I Leave for You is titled “Love, Acceptance, and Forgiveness.” Like all the chapters in that book, this chapter title is from a book by Jerry Cook which had a positive influence in my life. I reflected on that book, reread it, and wrote about it from a little different perspective.
And now it is your turn.
I would love for you to read the chapter in Things We’ve Handed Down. But, whether you read it or not, and whether or not you read the book this chapter is about, take a little time to process these three words:
- Love
- Acceptance
- Forgiveness
What do those words mean to you? What beliefs, experiences, and thoughts come to you as you focus on those three words?
Do you believe you are loved by God?
Do you believe you are accepted by God?
Do you believe you are forgiven by God?
If you struggled to receive God’s love, acceptance, and forgiveness, why? What is in the way? How should you respond? What is Jesus saying to you today?
Think about the three words. Write your own answers to those questions.
Though you have heard and read and stated many more words today, take some time and dwell on those three. Just those three. Let them help direct your larger story of many more words.
I read this chapter of your book this morning. So very good! Thanks for passing it down.
Thank you, Dennis.
Those three words are powerful. As Proverbs 18:21a says, “The tongue can bring death or life.” To me, the words “love,” “acceptance,” and “forgiveness,” bring life. Although it is hard to believe at times, I do believe in my heart that I am loved, accepted, and forgiven by God. The enemy is good at deceiving, but I can stand firm on God’s Word and seek His truth in the hard times. My prayer is that everyone knows that they are loved, accepted, and can be forgiven by God. No one is too far out of His reach.
Thank you, Pastor Chris! I enjoyed reading this.
I think that really dwelling on those three words can help build a stronger relationship with God.
These questions gave me a lot to think about, I think everyone should ask themselves those questions as it is very eye opening.
As I think on these three words, I am reminded how much of a gift it is to be loved, accepted, and forgiven by the Almighty, Holy God. I think two ways in which a person can respond to this. First, have a heart of gratitude and give thanks to God for being a loving, accepting, and forgiving God. Second, the same love, acceptance, and forgiveness He has so graciously shown, extend it to others. Love others how God loves. Accepts others how God accepts. Forgive others how God forgives.
I think those three questions are ones we should ask each day, and each day we will probably have a different answer. With that said, I believe those three words are meant to be received but also wrestled with every day in the life of a believer.
The words love, acceptance, and forgiveness are words that hold great value and power when it comes to living in God’s word. Love, above all, is the most important and powerful thing. God gave us a heart and the ability to love and it is a beautiful feeling. Love is the greatest gift of all because where there is love we will live on. The words acceptance and forgiveness, to me, fall under the category of love. Can you love enough to accept? Can you love enough to forgive?
I do believe that I am loved, accepted, and forgiven by God. However, it took me a long time to finally wrap my head around how great God’s love really is. I have done many things that I regret , said things that I do not mean, and have lived majority of my life steering away from God simply because I felt that I was not worthy. Now, as I am in the midst of my spiritual journey, I can say that I know just how powerful God’s love is, and that he accepts me and forgives me.
It can be easy to think of these three words as merely abstract concepts or actions that we perform when dealing with the people around us. It is good to be loving, accepting and forgiving towards others. However, as Christians sometimes we stop there. We can be quick to extend those things toward the people around us while disallowing ourselves from truly believing that God offers the same to us. We must remember in our times of weakness that we are still loved, accepted, and forgiven by God and be encouraged by that.
While letting the tree words- love, acceptance, and forgiveness resonate with me, I can truly get a sense of understanding as to just how powerful these words are. As Christians, I think that our lives are based on the three words meaning that we are supposed to love, accept, and forgive others just as Christ loves, accepts, and forgives us.
I think the words love, acceptance, and forgiveness are three of the most common words within christianity yet three of the hardest to comprehend. It is oftentimes hard to fathom the fact that there is a God who truly loves you to the point of death and dying for you. Same with acceptance of forgiveness. It is personally hard for me to fully wrap my mind around being fully and whole hearted accepted and forgiven. As I stated earlier, you hear these words thrown around often, yet rarely are able to truly understand what it means to be forgiven, or how to forgive. Or even at that, people might understand that the Lord forgives them and accepts them, yet do not know how to forgive and accept themselves or other people. Because these are three of the main points of Christianity as a whole, of course these are going to be three of the main paths of attacks from the enemy. I would say that I still struggle with believing and understanding what it means to be fully loved, accepted, and forgiven.
I think these three words encompass the entirety of a human’s purpose. Love, when expressed provides warmth to that who is sending and that who is receiving. Love is the basis for every connection we have within one another and the earth could literally be splitting in half, but if you are amongst those who you love the most, the earth splitting is not enough to ruin your spirit. Acceptance is something we have to learn how to administer in every aspect of our lives. Acceptance takes the place for judgement and as followers of Christ we understand that it is him who makes any call on how someone is doing in their life. That being said we accept people exactly for who they are and love them through their experience in finding the lord. Lasty, forgiveness, I believe is the most important aspect of them all. I want to address this by first asking a question. “When do we act the most out of character?” I would say when we are hurt or experiencing feelings of inferiority. In other words, we act in unpleaseant ways when we feel as if the power we once had is now no longer with us. This being said, forgiveness replaces the “power” we once lost in the form of vulnerability and self-improvement. Power or control is not something we need in order to live the life God wants us to, but in reality humans need to feel a sense of control enough to remain confidently autonomous. To ensure the security of this God has gifted us with the ability to forgive those who have brought us down or situation which have done the same in order to remain steadfast in our journey of humanism.
As an atheist, naturally I struggle to attach these words to any sort of religious context, with that being said I do think love acceptance and forgiveness have a significant role in my life and anyone’s life, without love there is little purpose to our existence, and quite frankly it would be sad to not experience any love. Acceptance to me means to just be curious about the different types of people in this world, where they have come from or how they had been raised, the color of their skin, etc. Forgiveness is I think a major focus for me, everyone makes mistakes, that is the reality of the human condition, we cannot avoid it, sometimes though these mistakes can influence us directly and we feel as though we deserve some sort of repayment for them, but if you do not forgive that would be your biggest mistake, whatever that person did to you on purpose or not will live with you forever.
I enjoyed reading this and the book is truly powerful. Love is so powerful to me and right now I know I need a lot of healing so reading this was really helpful to ease my mind.