3.066 The Power of a Tender Heart

In Matthew 5, Jesus calls us the salt of the earth and the light of the world, reminding us that our lives are meant to preserve, illuminate, and point others to Him. This season on Savory Salt, we'll walk through the Old Testament, one verse and one thought each day. Perhaps these moments will add greater savor and brighter light to our lives as we seek to truly live as Savory Salt.

Hello, my friends, it's a new day with new opportunities. Choose ye this day whom you will serve. My friends, our conversation yesterday, I know I didn't have time to talk too much into it, but I've seen too many families torn apart from the worldly things of this secular life that we live in.

And as their loved ones pass away, there's this struggle to divide and conquer each other. We have a part two today, and it's a beautiful lesson. It's one of forgiveness and reconciliation.

We are going to fast forward. I'm going to have to leap forwards and then backwards. And typically I try to do this in order, but we've got to connect this to yesterday.

Because when you fast forward to Genesis chapter 33, you have a moment with Jacob and Esau together again. Last we heard or last we read in Genesis 27 Esau was so angry with his brother that he was willing and ready to kill him. Because of the blessing that he had lost in his view.

Now it been years since they been apart, and you going to read that in 28, 29, 30, 31, and 32. And then we have a moment here in Genesis 33 that brings it back together. It's verse 4 as Jacob comes back from being gone for years.

This is the moment. Verse 4 says: "And Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck, and kissed him, and they wept." Sorry. It's a powerful verse.

My friends, forgiveness is a powerful thing. Reconciliation, especially inside of families, is truly a blessing from our Heavenly Father. The hatred, the struggle, the anger can all be washed away through the atonement of Jesus Christ.

It made me think of a song from one of my favorite bands. They're one of those bands that just gets in your mind and they don't get out. They're called Sidewalk Prophets if you've never heard of them.

It's Christian music and a Christian band. And I've put a link inside of here to take you over to YouTube and listen to one of their songs that I feel talks exactly to this moment in time with Esau and Jacob reconciling and coming back together and forgiving each other. It's called "The Power of a Tender Heart." My friends, I've watched this in action.

I've seen it. I seen how it changes people. And one of them that stands out to me the most is a lesson I learned from someone that didn't even know that he was teaching me a lesson.

It comes from my Uncle Roger who has now since passed on, but he lived in my life, in fact he lived at my house at a very pivotal time in my life in high school. And we had a very, very close relationship. He was my much, much older brother.

I'm here to tell you that I'm so grateful to be here. Both of us were together at a time where both of our testimonies were fragile and developing, and we spent a lot of time talking about it. My uncle Rog had lived a life that had led to him being separated in many ways from his family, his kids all in different directions, his wife and later ex-wife, and then remarried.

I watched him go to his family, daughter. I watched him seek to reconcile with them, to ask their forgiveness for times in his past when he wasn't living his best version of his life. I watched him move across the country to towns and cities where his kids lived to establish a relationship with them.

And I watched that love rekindle. And as I saw his kids, my cousins, at his funeral, I saw the love that they had for their dad. My friends, forgiveness is powerful.

I think sometimes we're very quick to anger, at least I am in some ways. And typically, inside of family relationships, it sure seems like we can get angry faster. But I hope we're equally fast at our ability to forgive each other.

I have shortcomings and others around me have shortcomings too. And since we all have the shortcomings, perhaps we can have a little bit more grace in those shortcomings and offer to each other the love that our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ would offer to us. My friends, I hope you enjoy the music today and I hope you take an opportunity to sew up, to heal up, to reconnect, to reconcile, to forgive, perhaps, a loved one in your life that in whatever way has perhaps wronged you and that that opportunity for that relationship to heal becomes one of eternal consequence for you both.

That's my hope and wish for you today. That's all for today, my friends. You and I have come here for such a time as this.

Step forward in faith and let's be Savory Salt. We will be here tomorrow and we hope you are too.