At the beginning of each New Year, I’m reminded of a spiritual lesson God taught me by a Second Grader. May it also help you walk forward with joy…into 2021.
It was 1956 in Long Beach, during my first teaching job. Standing before my desk, with a look of apprehension on his face, a little boy held up a sheet of paper and asked me the same question for the third time that same day, “Mrs. Leming, can I please have a clean piece of paper?”
Looking at his paper, I realized it was torn from too much erasing! I gave him a fresh paper and watched as he happily returned to his seat. The Lord spoke gently to my heart, “Do you realize I will give you a clean, fresh paper any time? All you need to do is ask Me.” I did not fully understand the meaning of that Truth until 1982 when a Surgeon gave me the shocking verdict of “six months” to live!
At the hospital, God spoke through a vision of a wretched, dirty woman in my room. He said, “That is what YOU look like in your own self righteousness.” He revealed what was in my heart. I thought no one saw the bitterness and unforgiveness. ONLY God knew it was there. I certainly did not realize how it was destroying God’s best plan for my life. The healing that followed this experience is written in Vessels of Honor books. My life was completely changed, and I shared this TRUTH for thirty years inside prisons. It is the “power of forgiveness”.
When God forgives us, He literally “cuts” offenses from us! He removes them as far as the east is from the west. When we learn to forgive others, the blood of Jesus becomes a “protective wall” around us. Satan CANNOT break through the blood. But when we “cling” to offenses through unforgiveness, bitterness, anger and emotional wounds, we give satan a legal right to enter into our lives.
True forgiveness is an act of our will…by faith in God’s supernatural power in us.
Matthew 6:14,15: “For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”
If YOU need a clean piece of paper like the little boy, ask your HEAVENLY TEACHER.
“Blessings for the New Year!”