Tag: love

ON BEING GOOD TO YOURSELF

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My therapist often tells me I am too often unkind to myself. He’s right. More often than not I take shame and guilt into myself. I can always think of things I should have done differently. At times I think I am failing God somehow. Situations I’ve gotten myself into tend to weigh on me. 

So here’s the story: One day, I was getting my hair cut when my stylist asked me what New Year’s resolutions I had made. I responded, “None.” After thinking for a moment, I told her I had decided to be kinder to myself. She began to cry. 

She told me that she needed that. I said, ‘God doesn’t do shame and guilt. God is love and wants us to know his love.’ She continued to weep, fortunately not dropping her tears on my newly shaped hair. She had ‘gotten herself’ into some unfortunate circumstances and was feeling the burden within her. I told her I would pray for her and….more tears. I then prayed for her and told her to embrace God’s love. She responded that she wanted to be more grateful in this life.

As I left the salon I realized I needed to take seriously for myself what I told this young woman. I cannot wallow in Pig Stink like the Prodigal Son that Jesus spoke about in Luke 15. No, God wants better for us. God wants us to flourish, not flounder. 

So every day of my existence I am going to be grateful for how much God loves me. Shame, self-doubt, and guilt are tools of evil turning us against ourselves instead of letting us gratefully receive God’s embrace of love.

There’s my NEW YEAR pledge. I choose love (God’s love).  For me and yes, for others. 

Our Confession of Conviction | Evangelical Confession 2024

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https://www.evangelicalconfession2024.com/

No matter how you voted or will vote I invite you to read, digest, and implement the following confession of faith drawn up by many evangelical leaders to guide our way through this election and into the future. I included the website where you can find helpful resources and the signers of this confession…so far.

Skye Jethani is the original author, along with twenty other evangelicals. It’s been signed by hundreds of pastors and church leaders, including yours truly. Here are the actual words to the confession.

Our Confession of Evangelical Conviction

In this moment of social conflict and political division, we confess the following Christian  convictions:

ONE: We give our allegiance to Jesus Christ alone.

We affirm that Jesus Christ is God’s Son and the only head of the Church (Colossians 1:18). No political ideology or earthly authority can claim the authority that belongs to Christ (Philippians 2:9-11). We reaffirm our dedication to his Gospel which stands apart from any partisan agenda. God is clear that he will not share his glory with any other (Isaiah 42:8). Our worship belongs to him alone (Exodus 20:3-4), because our true hope is not in any party, leader, movement, or nation, but in the promise of Christ’s return when he will renew the world and reign over all things (1 Corinthians 15:24-28).

We reject the false teaching that anyone other than Jesus Christ has been anointed by God as our Savior, or that a Christian’s loyalty should belong to any political party. We reject any message that promotes devotion to a human leader or that wraps divine worship around partisanship.

TWO: We will lead with love not fear.

We affirm that God’s saving power revealed in Jesus is motived by his love for the world and not anger (John 3:16). Because God has lavished his love upon us, we can love others (1 John 4:19). We acknowledge that this world is full of injustice and pain, but we are not afraid because Jesus Christ has promised to never abandon us (John 16:33). Unlike the false security promised by political idolatry and its messengers, the perfect love of God drives away all fear (1 John 4:18). Therefore, we do not employ fear, anger, or terror as we engage in our mission, but instead we follow the more excellent way of Jesus which is love (1 Corinthians 12:31-13:13).

We reject the stoking of fears and the use of threats as an illegitimate form of godly motivation, and we repudiate the use of violence to achieve political goals as incongruent with the way of Christ.

THREE: We submit to the truth of Scripture. 

We affirm that the Bible is the inspired Word of God, authoritative for faith and practice (2 Timothy 3:16-17). We commit to interpreting and applying Scripture faithfully, guided by the Holy Spirit, for the building up of Christ’s people and the blessing of his world (John 16:13). We believe any true word of prophecy must align with the teachings of Scripture and the character of Jesus (1 John 4:1-3). Likewise, to lie about others, including political opponents, is a sin (Exodus 20:16). Therefore, we commit to speaking the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15), knowing deception dishonors God and harms the reputation of his Church.

We reject the misuse of holy Scripture to sanction a single political agenda, provoke hatred, or sow social divisions, and we believe that using God’s name to promote misinformation or lies for personal or political gain is bearing his name in vain (Exodus 20:7).

FOUR: We believe the Gospel heals every worldly division.

We affirm the unity of all believers in Jesus Christ (Galatians 3:28), and that through his sacrificial death on the cross, he has removed the barriers that divide us (Ephesians 2:14-18), making people from every nation, tribe, people, and language into one new family (Revelation 7:9). We are called to be peacemakers (Matthew 5:9), and the counter-cultural unity of the Church is to be a sign to the world of God’s love and power (John 13:35; 17:20-21).

We reject any attempt to divide the Church, which is the Body of Christ, along partisan, ethnic, or national boundaries, and any message that says it is God’s desire for the human family to be perpetually segregated by race, culture, or ethnicity is a rejection of the Gospel.

FIVE: We are committed to the prophetic mission of the Church. 

We affirm that Christ’s kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36), therefore the Church necessarily stands apart from earthly political powers so that it may speak prophetically to all people, the society, and governing authorities. The Church has been given a divine mission of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:18-21). First, we call everyone to be reconciled to God through the proclamation of the Gospel as we teach people everywhere to copy the way of Jesus (Matthew 28:19-20). Second, we seek to reconcile people to one another by addressing issues of justice, righteousness, and peace (Amos 5:24). We accomplish this by loving our neighbors (Mark 12:31), and by engaging our public life with humility, integrity, and a commitment to the common good as defined by our faith in Christ (Romans 12:18).

We reject both the call for the Church to withdraw from societal issues out of fear of political contamination, as well as any attempt to distort the Church into a mere vehicle of political or social power.

SIX: We value every person as created in God’s image.

We affirm that all people bear God’s image and possess inherent and infinite worth (Genesis 1:27). Jesus bestowed dignity upon those his culture devalued, and he taught us that our love, like God’s, must extend even to our enemies (Matthew 5:43-48). Our faith in Christ, therefore, compels us to act with love and mercy toward all from the very beginning of life to the very end, and honor everyone as an image-bearer of God regardless of age, ability, identity, political beliefs, or affiliations (John 13:34-35). We commit ourselves to advocate for the value of everyone our society harms or ignores.

We reject any messages that employ dehumanizing rhetoric, that attempt to restrict who is worthy of God’s love, or that impose limitations on the command to “love your neighbor” that Christ himself removed.

SEVEN: We recognize godly leaders by their character.

We affirm that the character of both our political and spiritual leaders matter. Within the Church, we seek to follow spiritual leaders those who display evidence of the Holy Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23). Jesus warned us to be on guard against false teachers who come as wolves in sheep’s clothing (Matthew 7:15). These voices will tempt us with flattery, bad doctrine, and messages we want to hear (2 Timothy 4:3). They serve the false idols of power, wealth, and strength rather than the true God. Outside the Church, we will evaluate leaders based on their actions and the fruit of their character and not merely their promises or political success (Matthew 7:15-20). When any leader claims to have God’s approval, whether in the Church or in politics, we will not confuse effectiveness for faithfulness, but carefully discern who is truly from God (1 John 4:1).

We reject the lie that a leader’s power, popularity, or political effectiveness is confirmation of God’s favor, or that Christians are permitted to ignore the teachings of Christ to protect themselves with worldly power.

Conclusion

We stand united in our confession of faith in Jesus Christ, resolved to uphold the truth of the Gospel in the face of political pressure and cultural shifts. We commit to being a light in the world (Matthew 5:14-16), and faithful witnesses to the transforming power of Christ’s love. We pray that God’s Spirit will revive our Church and strengthen Christ’s people to be agents of his presence and blessing in this turbulent age.

To him who is able to keep us from stumbling and to present us before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy— to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen. (Jude 1:24-25)

Initial Signers

grace and peace,

george

THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS

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Amidst all the rules, regulations, doctrines, and religions there is only ONE thing that matters. Paul calls our attention to it in his letter to the Galatians. Paul is writing to people who are coming to faith and in chapter 5:6 he writes THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS IS FAITH EXPRESSED IN LOVE. That’s it. The best definition of love I have encountered is ‘acting intentionally for the well-being of another’  That’s it. Any questions?

NOT COMPLICATED OR MYSTERIOUS

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That’s right. God is not complicated or mysterious. When suffering occurs we often default to the mystery of God or say that God’s will is complicated. No.

Consider this. Jesus represents the essence of God and God’s purpose. Everything about God is disclosed in Jesus. All the fullness of God is in Jesus. Colossians 2:9.

Or as the MSG puts it, “Everything of God is expressed in Christ.”

If we see Jesus we see the Father. Jesus only does what he sees the Father doing. See John 5:19. God’s will for us is to flourish, to live abundantly and eternally. And all that is wrapped up in the sentence, ‘God is love’. 1John 4:16.

And just what is love that characterizes God and Jesus? Take a look at 1 Cor. 13. “4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres. 8 Love never fails”. NIV

That’s not complicated. That God loves us so much that he gave his son as atonement for our sin is mysterious and to be accepted and understood by faith.

HERE’S WHAT’S COMPLICATED AND MYSTERIOUS.

The cosmos, free will, and the warfare of the powers of darkness.

And we know that Jesus fought against Satan. Jesus’ purpose was to defeat the powers of death. 

Colossians 1:13-15, ‘ For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.’

If you haven’t read the book of Job it makes for a fascinating understanding of the complicated world with which God has to work. 

For a clue as to how complicated this cosmos is, I share a lengthy quote from author, pastor, and theologian Greg Boyd. (worth the read)

“Science has demonstrated that the slightest variation in a sufficiently complex process at one point may cause remarkable variations in that process at another point. It’s called chaos theory. The flap of a butterfly wing in one part of the globe can be, under the right conditions, the deciding variable that brings about a hurricane in another part of the globe several months later. (This has been called “the butterfly effect.”) To exhaustively explain why a hurricane (or any weather pattern, for that matter) occurs when and where it does, we’d have to know every detail about the past history of the earth—including every flap of every butterfly wing. Of course, we can’t ever approximate this kind of knowledge, which is why weather forecasting will always involve a significant degree of guesswork.

By analogy, this insight may be applied to free decisions. Because love requires choice, humans and angels have the power to affect others for better or worse. Indeed, every decision we make affects other agents in some measure. Sometimes the short-term effects of our choices are apparent, as in the way the decisions of parents immediately affect their children or the way decisions of leaders immediately affect their subjects. The long-term effects of our decisions are not always obvious, however. They are like ripples created by a rock thrown into a pond. Ripples endure long after the initial splash, and they interact with other ripples (the consequences of other decisions) in ways we could never have anticipated. And in certain circumstances, they may have a “butterfly effect.” They may be the decisive variable that produces significant changes in the pond.

Each person influences history by using his or her morally responsible say-so, creating ripples that affect other agents. And, as the originators and ultimate explanations for their own decisions, individuals bear primary responsibility for the ripples they create. Yet each individual is also influenced by the whole. Decisions others have made affect their lives, and these people were themselves influenced by decisions others made. In this sense, every event is an interference pattern of converging ripples extending back to Adam, and each decision we make influences the overall interference pattern that affects subsequent individuals.

From this, it should be clear that to explain in any exhaustive sense why a particular event took place just the way it did, we would have to know the entire history of the universe. Had any agent, angelic or human, made a different decision, the world would be a slightly different—or perhaps significantly different—place. But we, of course, can never know more than an infinitesimally small fraction of these previous decisions, let alone why these agents chose the way they did. Add to this our massive ignorance of most natural events in history—which also create their own ripples—combined with our ignorance of foundational physical and spiritual laws of the cosmos, and we begin to see why we experience life as mostly ambiguous and highly arbitrary. We are the heirs to an incomprehensibly vast array of human, angelic, and natural ripples throughout history about which we know next to nothing but which nevertheless significantly affect our lives.

When all is said and done, the mystery of why any particular misfortune befalls one person rather than another is not different than the mystery of why any particular event happens the way it does. Every particular thing we think we understand in creation is engulfed in an infinite sea of mystery we can’t understand. The mystery of the particularity of evil is simply one manifestation of the mystery of every particular thing.”

—Adapted from Is God to Blame? pages 97-99

God is love, pure and simple. And, according to the Bible, God enlists our help to bring love and life to all people and this world. When trouble comes, keep looking to Jesus.

COVID AND ME

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Finally, I got the bug, the disease, the germ. It was a couple of days ago and it wasn’t pretty. But I’m better, thankfully. 

I don’t think God had anything to do with my getting Covid. It’s about a lot of complicated stuff in the world contributing to the original outbreak, and subsequent deaths, but none of that is God’s doing. God wants what’s best for us, not suffering or evil. God doesn’t do Covid or Cancer. Look at Jesus. Jesus did what the Father was doing… loving, forgiving, and giving health and wholeness. 

God does everything God can do through his influence, love, wisdom, and grace to effect change and bring about goodness. Last Sunday I was preaching about Romans 8:28 where Paul writes that God is working all things to the good with those who are called according to his purpose. That means that God is partnering with his creation to bring healing. 

Good doctors, good medicines, loving people, and wise scientists all are helping in this endeavor and in every situation of ill health, evil, and sufferings too numerous to name. There might be blame for Covid but none of it rests with God. 

Here’s what helped me on my path toward better health. First, my wife. I came home from an errand during which I had masked because I thought I had the flu and wanted to be kind and not infect others. But when I walked in the door of my house that day I started to cry. I felt so poorly. I sat down with Gigi and she prayed for me. She asked God to help me leave my burdens with God so as not to be weighed down and feel so down. She prayed for healing. And I felt the love. God’s love in her was now connecting with my soul and my spirit was lifted. And then I started hearing from my children and even one of my grandchildren called me to wish me well.

Then she went and got me Paxlovid from my good pharmacist. She forbade me to do any chores, and I heartily agreed. And then people from my church wrote saying they hurt with me and were praying for me. That’s love, the greatest power on earth. And it comes from God. And even if I didn’t feel better I am more than grateful for the love and partnering with God, church folks, my wife, and family. And I am thankful for advances in medicines and vaccines influenced by God’s grace in this world. 

One more thing. I have learned that when I hurt, God hurts with me. God is in me as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. To them belongs the glory. Amen

My Architect Friend

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A good friend died recently. He was an architect. He helped my wife and I design a new home at one time in our lives. He was good at what he did, drawing up plans and attending town meetings to get them approved. He considered alternative ideas and was willing to change his blueprints according to our wishes. Bob was kind, sensitive, and hardworking. And he accommodated us at every turn.

Bob reminds me of God. God is like an architect creating for us a life, a blueprint, if you will. And here’s the thing. That blueprint changes from time to time because our architect is relational, kind, loving, and can change to meet our needs. 

No, God isn’t our errand boy or girl. But here’s what God wants for our lives- to flourish, to live abundantly, and to live eternally. God is not pleased with the suffering of his people. He doesn’t want his project broken down or destroyed; but sometimes when bad things happen, God goes out of his way to change plans for us. In Romans 8 Paul writes that God is working in our lives to bring the best out of bad situations and circumstances, some of which we ourselves create. God has a big eraser called “forgiveness”  that he can use to remedy the mistakes we have made.

C.S. Lewis liked to use the house analogy to illustrate how some of the plans and improvements are not always to our liking because God is making a house in which he can live and through which God can love the rest of the world. That house, our home, will be a light for the dark places of the world. 

My friend Bob wanted a nice place for us. He knew what we could afford and how to make our house a home. But we never did build that house. See, God sometimes has other plans for us. And even if what we did wasn’t according to the original blueprint, God has, in his loving way, accommodated and led us within his will to a place where his love dwells richly.

And Bob? Well, The GREAT ARCHITECT has made a new home for Bob. You can read about it in 2 Corinthians 5, here in the Message Version. 

 1-5 ‘For instance, we know that when these bodies of ours are taken down like tents and folded away, they will be replaced by resurrection bodies in heaven—God-made, not handmade—and we’ll never have to relocate our “tents” again. Sometimes we can hardly wait to move—and so we cry out in frustration. Compared to what’s coming, living conditions around here seem like a stopover in an unfurnished shack, and we’re tired of it! We’ve been given a glimpse of the real thing, our true home, our resurrection bodies! The Spirit of God whets our appetite by giving us a taste of what’s ahead. He puts a little of heaven in our hearts so that we’ll never settle for less.’

MOMENT BY MOMENT LOVE

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God does not have a blueprint for his creation. There is no fixed plan but rather God is moving with his design. God is in his creation as evidenced by Jesus in an historical time. God is the potter who refashions a piece of clay in his loving hands. God is alive in every part of his creation. As Paul said, agreeing with some Athenians, ‘In God, we live and move and have our being. We are God’s offspring.’ 

Many ask where God is in our times of suffering. He is within that suffering. God experiences the tectonic movements of the people and the land. In the groaning of the creation, God is groaning with us, praying in us, connecting himself to us through his Holy Spirit. (See Romans 8) When Jesus agonized in Gethsemane and cried out from the cross, ‘My God why have you abandoned me’, he did that in solidarity with you and me. 

God, because of the nature of love, has no choice but to let his creation be free to choose his love. His creatures rebelled and then God decided (changed his loving will) to come alongside his children to woo them, draw them, court them, and pursue them. He changed course to bring his family back home, back to the Garden. He became one of them and dwelt with them in tents and tabernacles. He cooperated with them to rescue them from bondage. (See Exodus 3)

The Psalmists testify to the living, loving, and present God. Oh, for sure, they questioned God, even railed at God from their places of exile and despair, but they always returned to this truth:, ‘the love of God endures forever’.

 There is no place where God isn’t. (Read Psalms 136 and 139) God is not an absentee landlord setting up the creation and leaving it to run on some predestined plan. (Uh oh. Now I have lost the Reformers.)  God is no puppeteer and this life is not a pre-scripted drama. No, God weeps, feels joy with all the angels and deeply feels our sorrows. And God changes his plans. Not his character but the everyday moment-by-moment relationship that moves his creation closer to him. Recall that Paul wrote, ‘God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.’ (2Cor. 5:19) At this very moment God stirs within each of us believers and non-believers, helping us to flourish, for God is a lover. John Wesley captured this sentiment in his hymn, “Jesus, Lover of My Soul.” (See Jeremiah 31:3)

Maybe I’m more Methodist than I thought.

One more time: Romans 8 tells us there is nothing, nothing at all in all creation that can separate us from this moment-by-moment relational love which is from and for God. In Christ, God makes that evident through Christ.

That’s grace.

THIS ONE’S FOR THE BIRDS…..AND OTHERS

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As I have written, my wife loves birds and cares immensely for the little ones. But there is one thing that she doesn’t do. She does not let the birds into our house. 

I recall Ed and Marie, members of a church I once pastored. They let birds into their home. They loved birds. They rescued birds. People brought them wounded birds. The first time I visited them I noticed all their furniture was covered with plastic. Birds were flying around the house. These weren’t just parakeets. There was even a seagull in the mix. They were pooping all over the place. I chose my seat carefully and tried not to breathe in too deeply. Some would say that Ed and Marie were not living in healthy conditions but they loved the birds. They didn’t have children and needless to say, they didn’t have many visitors. But I loved them for their concern, and yes, visited again.

We read in Psalm 84 that in God’s house, his Temple, even the ‘sparrows found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself where she may have her young- a place near your altar, Lord Almighty, my King and my God.’ (Verse 3 NIV)

The Apostle Paul wrote that we are the Temple of God’s Spirit- it’s where the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit live. So am I the place that welcomes others in Christ’s name? Is my life that place?  Together we are to be a sacred place for all people. Jesus said that God’s house is a place for prayer for all people. It’s within that sacred space of our hearts and minds that others find God and love and acceptance. But I confess that my heart is not always a place for all people. There are some I let in and others I keep out. Some say it’s good to have boundaries so that you don’t have poop all over your house but what I have done is build a moat to keep others’ kingdoms from encroaching upon mine.

I know who the people are in my life that are ‘outside’ and just maybe by the grace of God someday I will put in a bridge with a welcome sign on my little door. We’ll see. I just don’t want to have to cover the place in plastic. May God rest the precious souls of Marie and Ed and all their little bird friends.

I WAS WRONG…and the world is better for it.

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“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28 NIV

All my life I thought this Scripture was just for Christians. Yes, I thought God was so focused on me and us that God was going to make things better for us. But I was wrong. This passage is not about me. 

It’s about the world. It means, if you read the whole book of Romans, that God wants to work in partnership with believers for the benefit of the world. God wants to grace the world, his creation and he wants us to help just like he has always done. God wants the creation to flourish. God wants the Kingdom life for everyone. And in the midst of all the rotten stuff in the world, God invites the church, the body of Christ, to work alongside God for everyone’s benefit. Salvation and abundant life come through Christ and by the Holy Spirit are imparted to all those who desire to know God’s love.    

The other day I came across this ‘remix’ of Romans 8:28 and it put everything in perspective for me and hopefully for some of you.

“For we know that God, working together with those of us who have been touched by God’s love, is yearning to bring good out of all the suffering and evil we see around us in our world today. This is our calling according to God’s purpose: To collaborate with the Spirit of God within us, to bring His Kingdom to earth, now.” [Roman 8:28, remix]- author Keith Giles

 So when we see trouble and turmoil all around us we know that God is working with those who have experienced God’s love to somehow and at some time make it better. Hopefully sooner than later. Amen 

HELL? NO. SOME THOUGHTS.

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There are too many gray areas and misunderstandings about the concept of hell for me to accept this destiny as some kind of eternal torment. There are too many interpretations of the precise meaning of such a realm. And the God I encounter in Jesus is not the kind of vengeful tyrant who allows his creations to be excruciatingly tortured for all time. Here are some of my thoughts.

  1. What happens to people who have never heard the gospel of Christ?
  2. What about mentally challenged people?
  3. Where are we told anything about the eternal destiny of little children?
  4. There are so many people who have been abused by Christians and their messages.
  5. People who ‘believe’ but somehow live out of sync with God’s will. What happens to those prodigals?
  6. What about all the Germans who participated in the Holocaust?
  7. Jews? Are they all doomed?
  8. Who are the truly wicked people sent to eternal damnation?
  9. What about really nice people who just have never grasped the idea of accepting Christ even though they live Godly lives?
  10. When Christians fight wars and kill others are they doomed?
  11. Is hell eternal agony or annihilation? Both are mentioned in the Bible.
  12. My view of God is a loving father or mother who, because of that love, wouldn’t consign most of their creation to eternal suffering. 
  13. If there is any kind of hell, it will be sparsely populated.
  14. Early Christian scholars didn’t write about hell as an eternal destiny.
  15. Which sins are truly deserving of spending eternity in torment?
  16. I wouldn’t want to live with someone just because I was afraid they would hurt me if I didn’t. Jesus wouldn’t want that for us either.
  17. We have been taught by Jesus to forgive endlessly. Are we to be more merciful than God?
  18. If Jesus died for all of our sins, why do some people have to pay for their own sins?
  19. Hell makes God’s justice seem vengeful.
  20. If really bad people end up in eternal hell why would Jesus from the cross say, ‘Father forgive them for they know not what they do?’
  21. Hell, for me, doesn’t fit the grand scheme of a new heaven and new earth.

Some of what I have written can be argued against with certain Scriptures but I submit there are interpretations of those scriptures that are very different and theologically sound.

If hell is anything, I see it as a sidebar where the judge tells my attorney, Jesus: ‘After all considerations, all will be well.’

In closing let me extend an invitation to come to Jesus, and follow Jesus. Let Jesus teach you and guide you into the way of eternal and abundant life with the God of creation and into a life of loving others even as we are right now being loved. This is the meaning of faith.

Remember this. It is Satan who wants to keep us away from God. But as Paul writes to the Colossians in chapter 2:

‘13 When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, 14 having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. 15 And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.’ (13-15) Bible Gateway NIV