Telling the Truth

Guest (Male): God's forgiveness is yours for the taking. Today on Telling the Truth, Jill Briscoe explores God's forgiveness and the Lord's Prayer. But first, if you've been feeling overwhelmed lately, like your mind just won't slow down, you're not alone. A lot of people today are carrying anxiety, uncertainty, and questions. They don't know where to take them.

That's why Telling the Truth is sharing biblical teaching in digital spaces, so people can encounter God's truth right in those moments, right where they are. As we approach the end of the financial year, your support is critical to keep this ministry going. Right now, your gifts will be doubled through an $82,000 matching grant, helping reach more people searching for peace and direction.

And as our thanks, we'll send you Stuart Briscoe's book, "A Piece of My Mind," a resource designed to help you experience God's steady pace when life feels unsettled. Call 262-788-4648 to have your gift doubled by the match or give online at tellingthetruth.org. Now let's get to Jill with today's message, "The Forgiveness of God."

Jill Briscoe: I know Jesus prayed when he was a little boy. I know that he prayed as he was growing up in Nazareth. I do not think Jesus Christ learned to pray to his Father at the age of 30 to the age of 33. Of course not.

I believe he prayed for his family, James and Joseph, who didn't believe in him, and all the rest of his sisters and brothers. I believe he prayed for his mother. I believe he prayed for his father, Joseph—his dear, beloved earthly father—who got sick. I believe he prayed for him. And as Joseph went through the front door ahead of his earthly family, Jesus prayed for all the mourners in his extended family.

I believe he prayed for the neighbors in Nazareth. I believe he prayed for the customers who came to his small business in town. I believe he prayed for his debtors, the people that never came through and paid him for all the hard work he'd done building their houses. I believe he went to collect his debts, and I believe he heard the story. And I believe if he knew it was poverty or a problem, I believe he forgave the debts.

I believe he did more than forgive the debts standing on that doorstep; I believe he prayed for that family. He prayed. I believe he prayed for the Romans. I believe he prayed for the slaves. I believe he prayed for the children and the women in his society.

I believe he prayed for all those poor, horrible situations he saw on the side of the road, the great big crosses. Because the Romans had this habit of hanging people on crosses all along the roads in every province that they controlled. It was a sort of visual, graphic reminder: if you ever dare to have an uprising against us, that's where you're going to end, like Barabbas and his two friends.

And so Jesus Christ, as a boy, would see people on a cross. Do you think he prayed for them? Oh, yes. I believe Jesus prayed for the people on the cross. Jesus grew up talking to God about everybody he met, and so must we.

How do you pray? You just pray. It's language. It's talk. You pray as you go to the gas station. You pray as you see a sad face standing in a line. I pray when I'm traveling all the time because I know there are people I might pray for, and I might be the very first person who has ever prayed for them.

Think about it. What a privilege. And then because you're praying for them—the young woman just this last trip, struggling with two babies and a three-year-old on a plane. Guess what happens? Everybody asks to change seats and get away from them, right? I asked to change seats and go and sit and help her.

And what that did was quite incredible. I wouldn't have done it if I hadn't seen her struggling, and as a grandmother, my heart went out to her and I began to pray for her. And I prayed for her because she didn't have anybody helping her. And I prayed for the little kids. I had no idea, only God knows the situation. She wasn't met at the other end. Nobody came to meet her. She was struggling with her bags and her kids.

But as I just prayed, "Lord, if she's never heard of you, send somebody, and here am I, send me if you want me," I just changed seats and sat down and said, "Can I help you with these kids?" And you should have seen her face. It was so easy. But what did that for me was I was in an attitude of praying in my Nazareth life.

That's where it begins, and that's where you practice prayer. And for you parents and grandparents, what a great place to be to pray for your children. One of the members at this church has a little piece of property on the freeway, and he puts up these wonderful, huge, great billboards. Has anybody seen them? Yeah. Do you remember what the one at the moment says? Yeah, "knee-mail." God always hears knee-mail. Isn't that cute?

But if you're a mother, if you're a grandmother, a parent, do you ever worry about your children? Why don't you start there? You don't think you have extra time to pray for your kids and the kids of the world? Take worry time. Do you know how much time you spend worrying? And shape it into a prayer.

Worries hate that. They squirm, and they throw their toys out of the cot, and they have a tantrum. But get hold of the worry that you're worrying about, get on your knees, and say, "This is what I'm worrying about," and shape it into a prayer to your Father. That's time you can use.

Nobody worries more than a mother, yet mothers live longer than anybody. Why? Because as her children grow older, she switches from worrying to praying. And then she becomes indispensable to God. So he lets her live longer. For God knows that if there's anyone more precious to a family than a mother who worries, it's a grandmother who prays. True.

Ruth Bell Graham's wonderful poem, "Prodigals and Those That Love Them." If you have a prodigal, buy that book. One of my favorite poems in that book: "Listen, Lord, a mother's praying, low and quiet. Listen, please. Listen what her tears are saying. See her heart's upon its knees. Lift the load from her broad shoulders till she sees and understands. You who hold the world together, hold her problems in your hands."

Everything falling apart? Guess what? The Father holds things together. So talk often to the Father about your prodigals. "Thy kingdom come." And now it's our turn. Oh, you're so glad you said, "Jill, you've told me, I've felt so guilty. I've sat here, now I can't pray for myself, and I have to pray for the world. Every time I'm thinking about my prayers, I'm getting more and more ashamed."

And now it's my turn. "Give us this day our daily bread." What are you going to say about that, Jill? See, there is a bit where I can pray for me. No. Doesn't say give me today. What does it say? Give us today our daily bread.

And even in the permitted, good petition for our needs to be met that Jesus instructed us to pray about, there are things we need to learn. Prayer is a declaration of dependence on God. And you wouldn't have bread and I wouldn't have bread today at lunchtime if the sun didn't shine and the rain didn't fall and the seed didn't germinate. And guess what? You can do nothing at all about that. Thank you for our daily bread.

Guest (Male): You're hearing from Jill Briscoe today on Telling the Truth. She's coming right back with more on the nature of God as a forgiving father. But before she jumps back in, there's a growing hunger for truth in our world today, and more people than ever are searching for real answers. That's why as Telling the Truth prepares to close out another financial year, your support matters so much.

Your support helps take the trusted teaching of Stuart and Jill Briscoe and place it into digital spaces where people are already looking for hope. And right now, an $82,000 matching grant will double your gift, expanding that reach even further in the months ahead. When you give, we'll say thanks by sending you "A Piece of My Mind," a powerful resource from Stuart that shows you how to experience God's perfect peace even in uncertain and challenging times.

So call today to request your copy when you have your gift doubled by the match: 262-788-4648. That's 262-788-4648, or you can give online at tellingthetruth.org. For many, our smartphones have become our social connection, but we want to help you make a spiritual connection with the Telling the Truth mobile app.

You can listen to daily programs, engage in Bible reading plans, journal, and share your thoughts and prayers on the community wall. Get the Telling the Truth app through your App Store or log in to tellingthetruth.org/mobileapp. Remember, you can also give to support Telling the Truth on our mobile app. All right, let's get back to Jill with more of today's message from her series "The Fatherhood of God."

Jill Briscoe: Another thing about praying about that regularly is it reminds you how totally dependent we are. There's a wonderful verse in Proverbs 30, verse 8: "Give me, Lord, enough food to live on, neither too much nor too little. If I'm too full, I might get independent and say 'God, who needs him?' If I'm too poor, I'll steal and dishonor the name of my God." Just give me enough. What's enough? A little bit more than what I've got. Never have enough.

Enough is daily bread. Neediness, not greediness. We need to pray about that. In our affluent, crowded lives in America, we need to pray. Show me, somehow show me the necessity and the state of my dependence on you for my daily needs. Remind me for that. And God says, "Ask me. I want you to ask me. If a son asks a father for bread, will he give him a stone or a serpent? No, he'll give him bread."

Good gifts to those that he loves. And so we are to ask. Physical needs, spiritual needs, relational needs. "Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors." Keep us forgiven with you and forgiving others. First Corinthians 13: love doesn't keep a record of wrongs. Doesn't keep books. Are you keeping a book on someone? Are you writing down every little thing they've done to you, said to you, thought about you in your perceptions or reality?

Are you keeping a running record? Love doesn't keep books. Cancels the debt like he canceled the debt against us. He has canceled our indebtedness. And once we believe in the size of what God has forgiven us, we will have no trouble at all; it will be a given to be able to forgive the little things that people have done to us.

How does this work? We start with us. Where did Jesus say this whole thing on forgiveness starts? We have to say to him, not "forgive them what they've done to me." No, get the first thing first. Forgive me what you need to forgive me for. And the knowledge and the experience of knowing you're forgiven will then turn around and bless other people.

That's how it works. But until we understand—and those of us that have not murdered our mother with an axe, or those of us that have not committed adultery, and those of us that have little sins—find this hard. Those of us who are big sinners find it easy. Because a big sinner, somebody that's made a big mess, realizing God is able to forgive the big mess as much as he can forgive the little mess, is so overwhelmed. Absolutely overwhelmed.

They never have to think twice about running towards somebody else who's hurt them. Never have to think twice. I have a friend who went to see a woman who was about to be executed. The woman asked her to be present at her execution. And she said to her, "Frances, are you absolutely sure you came a believer, you've come to know Jesus, you know your sins are forgiven? You know in one hour's time, you're going to go through that front door and you're going to be with God. You do know that, don't you?" And she said, "Yeah, I do know it. I do know it, but my sin is so big. I've killed, I've taken life. It's so big."

And my friend told her about walking along the beach on a holiday and seeing a little crab come out of a hole—a little, tiny hole. Then she walked along and a child was making a sandcastle, and the hole was bigger. Then she walked along and there were some men excavating and helping with the erosion, and it was a huge, great hole. And as she walked, the tide came in. And guess what? It filled up the hole.

That's what the blood of Christ does. Fills up the hole. I don't care if it's a big hole. I don't care if it's a little hole. But even the little hole hurts God as much as the big hole. Sin hurts God. And another thing about forgiveness: to withhold forgiveness from someone is a sin. It's a sin of omission, just as big a hole as a sin of commission.

And so, not to initiate, not to refuse to hold something against somebody—the nursing of the grudge, the pampering of those bad memories, the firing up of the bitterness inside you is sin. And God wants you to be free from that. There is such a freedom when you let it go.

But you won't be able to let it go unless you're at the foot of the cross. An African told me a story once of having a dream and seeing a man walk up a hill and recognized himself. And it was Calvary and the crosses were at the top. And then he found out that Jesus was walking behind him, but Jesus was having a hard time because he could hardly stagger up the hill. He was almost crawling because he had this huge, great burden on his back. And the African went to help him and he said, "Lord, are you carrying the sins of the whole world to Calvary?" And the Lord said, "Oh no, just yours. Just yours. Just yours."

And guess what? He forgave it. God the Father forgave what we did to God the Son as he took our sins to Calvary. And now he offers that forgiveness to us. Deliver us, therefore, from the evil of nursing the grudge. Deliver us from the temptation. And Satan and God, the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of light, are in this battle at the moment. You can read about that in Ephesians and what prayer has to do with it.

But devilness, we need to be delivered from the evil one, as Jesus prayed in John chapter 17. We have an enemy. You can see his footprints. You can see his footprints around your life, around your family. But we have a Father in the forest. And when we cry, "Father, are you there?" God is always there.

But so is that wretched creature. And God and the devil use permitted pain and problems to two opposite ends: the devil to destroy us and God to make us and strengthen us and deliver us from ourselves. Permitted pain is used, if we allow it, by the devil to destroy us and by God to strengthen us and make us like Christ. Two kingdoms.

And so the wonderful prayer finishes: "For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever, Amen." And it's like bookends. "Our Father which art in heaven," holy, marvelous Father. And at the end, the other bookend: "Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory." It's God first and God last and God everything else in between. It's all about him.

What about us? And yet he lets little "us" into it. In his Father's arms, he picks us up and he holds us close to his heart and says, "I'm going to give the kingdom to you, little flock. Don't be frightened. The kingdom's going to be yours, and the King of the kingdom is going to be yours." And he wants us to feel the beat of our Father's heart.

I wrote a piece years ago for Decision Magazine called "Shelter from the Storm," and I found it the other day. I'd like to finish with it. I was barely six years of age, and I remember sitting by a roaring fire in the Lake District where we had fled the bombs in Liverpool. My father was home from the war on leave, and he was sitting in a big armchair. I can see it now.

And a storm had broken outside, and the wind and the rain were lashing against the windowpanes. But we were nice and safe and warm inside, and I was watching it. But I was old enough to understand that a greater storm was raging that involved the whole world. And the fire was warm, and my father, relaxed and reading the paper sitting in his big chair, suddenly became aware of my little bit of insecurity and apprehension.

And he put his paper down and he smiled at me and he said, "Come here, little girl. Come on, come here." And suddenly I was in his arms, leaning against his shoulder and feeling the beat of my father's heart. And I've thought about that day many times, and I've realized how my heavenly Father shelters me from the storms of life.

When torrents of sorrow swamped me at my mother's funeral, I sought the reassurance of my heavenly Father's presence. And when winds of worry whipped away my confidence as I faced gangs of youth people in street evangelism, I glanced up to see my Father's face.

And when floods of fear threatened to drown me on 9/11, 2001, as I sat in an airplane, flight 292 United, high in the sky, and the pilot came on and said, "All the borders are closed, all the boundaries are closed. It's a national emergency. I have to make an emergency landing and I can't tell you why."

When that happened to me, I sensed my heavenly Father all over again say, "Come here, little girl." And in my airplane seat, I climbed into his arms, leaned against his shoulder, and was safe. And as I rest, as you rest in that safe place, here, I can feel the beat of my Father's heart.

Guest (Male): You're listening to Jill Briscoe today on Telling the Truth, and she's coming back in just a moment to talk with us about today's message. But before she does, what if your generosity today helped place biblical truth in front of someone at the exact moment they needed it most? That's what's happening every day through Telling the Truth.

Through social media, our Telling the Truth website, and other digital platforms, people are encountering God's word, many for the very first time, right where they are. And more people than ever are searching for the kind of peace that can only be found through life in Christ. That's why as we approach the end of the financial year, it's so important that we finish strong.

Because your support can help us reach even more people with biblical truth in the coming year. The great news is that a group of generous friends has offered an $82,000 matching grant, doubling your gift to expand the outreach even further in the months ahead. Now is a powerful time for you to step in and help keep God's word going out to the people who need it most.

And as our thanks, we'll send you Stuart Briscoe's book, "A Piece of My Mind," a powerful resource from Stuart that shows you how to experience God's perfect peace, even in uncertain and challenging times. Just call 262-788-4648 to request your copy when you have your gift doubled by the match. That's 262-788-4648, or you can give online when you visit tellingthetruth.org. Now let's get back to Jill with some answers about today's teaching.

Jill, how does prayer reinforce our dependence on God?

Jill Briscoe: I think the more you have a conversation on the steps of your soul, in the deep place where nobody goes, as I often say, I think the importance of that is the conversation should not be one-sided. And I come back all the time to read first, pray next. Read first and then pray about what you've read. And give him the last word, basically. Don't leave the prayer room with you having the last word.

And do a lot of looking at the Gospels and seeing how Jesus was dependent on his Father. If Jesus needed to be dependent on his Father—"I do nothing without the Father," he said—"Thy will be done, Father," he taught his disciples to pray. So if Jesus realized his total dependence on his Father was necessary and he talked about that a lot in his prayer life, then so we need to do it. So why don't you just start and practice that? See how you go.

Guest (Male): Jill, how does a believer get into the habit of prayer?

Jill Briscoe: Well, start it. Just start a habit. Just do it once and then do it twice, three, four, five, six. Just start. Pick a time. Take your calendar off, and it could be a different time each day depending on your schedule. Put it on your calendar, then keep the appointment as surely as you keep your appointment for the dentist or the doctor or a friend.

Get a rhythm of refusing to put your head on the pillow at night until your nose has been in the book during the day, which is what my husband sent the congregation out for years out of his church at the end of his sermon: "Never put your head on the pillow at night until your nose has been in the book during the day." And that's how a habit starts. And then just practice a habit. You should be practicing good habits all the time, and this is a very, very good habit.

Guest (Male): Thanks so much, Jill. Before we go, here's something important to remember. Your support this month can help Telling the Truth reach even more people in the coming year. Right now, your gift will be doubled through an $82,000 matching grant, helping extend biblical teaching to people around the world through digital platforms.

And as our thanks, we'd love to send you Stuart Briscoe's book, "A Piece of My Mind," to encourage you with the promise of God's peace. So please request your copy when you call 262-788-4648. That's 262-788-4648, or you can give online when you visit tellingthetruth.org. So glad you've joined us today. Come again as the Briscoes share more powerful truth from God's word. Experience life next time on Telling the Truth.