At some point, you have to deal with the historical evidence and soon thereafter you have to deal with the claims of Christ… It is my hope this helps you to be sure that when you give your life to Christ – it really matters, He was real and still is real and He can literally change your life!

Previously at EPIC: We had explored the idea that when we choose not to forgive, that we are really choosing not to trust God. When you get right down to it, forgiveness is essentially the action of giving up our right to revenge and trusting that God will repay whoever for any injustice done to us. This is important for us to grasp, that forgiveness is trust in God.

It is easy to understand how to forgive, but for some of us the question is more about “why I should forgive?”. I mean, let’s be honest – some of us have experienced horrific things that should not even be discussed in mixed company, and to expect us to forgive those people can seem trite. I think it’s pretty legitimate to ask why we even need to do this.

Jesus spoke to this subject in Matthew 18:21-35

21 Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?”
22 Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.[f]

23 “Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24 As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents[g] was brought to him. 25 Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.

26 “The servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ 27 The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.

28 “But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii.[h] He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.

29 “His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.’

30 “But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. 31 When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened.

32 “Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. 33 Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ 34 In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.

35 “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.”

You see, if you’ve been forgiven, your reaction should be to forgive others. Forgiveness begets forgiveness. I think it’s interesting that Jesus says, in vs. 35, that if we withhold forgiveness that we can literally turn off the grace that God has been bestowed up on us – we can effectively mute it’s effectiveness in our own lives because we haven’t learned anything from being forgiven.

Why do I need to forgive? Because I have been forgiven. I am a dirty rotten scoundrel (which is a great movie, by the way…) – I am not worth the “worth” that God has placed on my life. This is not me being humble, this is me being real. I am nothing more than a man who has been forgiven, and when I withhold that same forgiveness to others, I have bought into the hypocrisy that can so easily pervade religious thinking. I forgive, because I have been forgiven – how about you?

I love you Dad, you showed me that changing course midstream is more than possible, I really truly can’t wait to be in your arms again.  I hope I can be half the dad to my children that you were to me…

http://www.probe.org/site/c.fdKEIMNsEoG/b.4223639/k.567/Ancient_Evidence_for_Jesus_from_NonChristian_Sources.htm

I wanted to pass this along because I think there is a sense in Christianity that the bible is the only reference we have to the existence of Jesus.  It did great things for my faith when I learned that there were other sources that described the same Jesus as our bible!