TODAY IS…

the day to add to our list of resolutions.

“Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.”  Colossians 3:13 NLT

If we were all to live up to those instructions Paul gave in his letter to the Colossians, what a great year we would all have.

“Make allowances for each other’s faults….”

Think about that for a moment.

How often are we quick to point out another person’s faults? Sadly, many of us are more prone to do that than to expound on their good points. We often do this in spite of the fact that we have faults of our own. Christ Himself had something very specific to say about that.

“You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.” (Matthew 7:5 NASB).

None of us is perfect, so we must use the gift of the coming year to accept each other as we are.

We must also learn to forgive those who do things to us because we are in need of forgiveness ourselves. It would do us all well to look to God daily for help in accepting other peoples’ faults, other peoples’ differences, and other peoples’ imperfections.

Not a single one of us will ever stand out like Christ as being perfect.

The best that we can do is lean on each other and rely on each other to work together to turn the world into the kind of place that God surely intended it to be when He first created it.

Sometimes we resist change because we know we cannot attain perfection.

Sometimes we don’t try to fix things because for every one thing we fix, there seems to always be another that is broken.

We allow our humanity to step in and paint a picture of impossibility in all that we see, but we must resolve to make the coming year one where we see nothing but possibilities.

Again we must look to Paul’s advice to the Colossians when he said, “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.” (Colossians 3:15 NIV).

So we must resolve to answer the call to peace. If we are accepting and forgiving of others we can bring peace closer to all.

It shouldn’t take a resolution for us to be thankful, but let us all resolve to say, “Thank You” to God each and every day. When we consciously remember to thank Him, the other resolutions become easier to remember and a whole lot easier to make a part of every day of the year.

*******

Taken from “TODAY IS….A Gift From God”, (C) 2013 Tony Casson