• “Lord, may no gift of yours ever take Your place in my heart. Help me to hold them lightly in an open palm, that the supreme object of my desire may always be You and You alone. Purify my heart.” – Elisabeth Elliot

The Fruit of Forgiveness By Elisabeth Elliot

Every day I am forgiven for many sins of many kinds, and although on the one hand forgiveness seems such an impossible thing (but grace is greater than all my sin), on the other hand I receive it often without wonder and nearly always without offering any “fruit.”

When the Lord punished Israel, Isaiah wrote: “Only then can the fruit of his forgiveness be shown: they must smash their stone altars into pounded chalk” (Is 27:9 JBP).

When I acknowledge a specific sin, it is a good thing to do something specific to demonstrate my determination to forsake it. Smash an altar, sacrifice an hour of sleep or a meal (if the sin has been, e.g., failure to do what I want to do “because I haven’t time”), write a note of apology to one sinned against, make restitution in some way for a wrong. To arise and obey in such a particular act is an appropriate sign of the genuineness of my repentance–the fruit of forgiveness.

 

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  • “I entreat you, give no place to despondency. This is a dangerous temptation–a refined, not a gross temptation of the adversary. Melancholy contracts and withers the heart, and renders it unfit to receive the impressions of grace. It magnifies and gives a false colouring to objects, and thus renders your burdens too heavy to bear. God’s designs regarding you, and His methods of bringing about these designs, are infinitely wise.” – Madame Guyon

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[A New Prophet Like Moses] “The Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren. Him you shall hear, — Deuteronomy 18:15 (NKJV)

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