Do you beat yourself up when things go wrong? I’ve been guilty of holding myself to extremely high standards—standards I can never hope to live up to—then mentally bashing myself when things go wrong.

“You know better,” I berate myself. “How could you have done such a thing?”

Ah, negative self-talk… we can be our own worst enemies, can’t we? And the sad thing is when we are forced to watch it happen in those we love.

Grace is such an extraordinary gift! And it’s something every single one of us gets thanks to the love and mercy of our Heavenly Father.

Most of us don’t spend a lot of thinking about how absolutely fortunate we are that we get the opportunity for salvation, that God offers us eternal life through His son Jesus Christ. And yet—how amazing that He does!

We are sinful people who often go directly against what God says. We mock Him, run from Him, and put other things before Him, from money and earthly pleasures to other “false gods.” Yet God still loves us, and He gives us a path to heaven anyway. He gave us His own son, who paid our sin debt.

Because of that, God tells us in Scripture, when someone else wrongs us in some way, we’re supposed to forgive as we’ve been forgiven. We’re to remember the grace we get and extend it to others in turn.

God calls us to forgive—not just once but again and again.

Be merciful. Be compassionate. Forgive in honor of how you were forgiven.

And while you’re at it, forgive yourself, too.

My devotional for this week on the gift of grace and power of forgiveness (even when it’s hard!).

Thanks for watching! And I hope you'll also connect with me on social media and on my blog, which has a deeper reflection on this.

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