Reply To: Present Day Ministry of Jesus/Understanding Suffering – Discussion Forum: Week 1- February 19, 2017

I need to start off by saying how amazing that word was with the revelation I received from it. Life after the cross enables us to do what God has already put in us compared to before the cross where we had to do something first in order for God to do act on our behalf. In the example of forgiveness in the old testament we had to forgive first in order for God to forgive us according to Mark 11:26 which says “But if ye do not forgive, neither will your father which is in heaven forgive you.” The problem with that is if we knew nothing about forgiveness or if it wasnt in us, how could we have forgiven. This would place tremendous pressure on us especially if someone did something to us that was unforgivable in our own eyes. Life after the cross says  “and be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christs sake hath forgiven you according to Ephesians 4:32. This scripture does not say we have to do something first, it tells us that because Christ forgave us first, we are now equipped to forgive someone else. With Christ forgiving us first, placed roots on the inside of us to bare the fruit of forgiveness. It was an eye opener because if we know God forgave us for the mess we have done or maybe still do, we can certainly forgive someone who may not have done half the things to us, that we have done to God in disobedience. The same thing goes for love. Life before the cross said that we have to Love God with all our heart and soul in addition to loving our neighbor as ourselves according to Mark 12:30-31. We all know that loving people is not the easiest thing to do, especially the seemingly unloveable ones, the ones your flesh wants to hate. To help us in this department, Life after the cross says “And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us Romans 5:5. This tells us that God placed his love IN our hearts which Enables us to love one another because Christ loved us even when we were sinners. By knowing this truth, we can love someone who has “sinned’ against us by doing us wrong or by just being a horrible person with a bad attitude. To conclude, life after the cross enables us to do what God already equipped us with and we are to bare fruit.