"Our Great Hope"

"Behold, the eye of the LORD is upon them that fear Him, upon them that hope in His mercy;" (Psalms 33:18) You know, there's something else we fall short of, and it's a little thing called forgiveness! We can't forgive the way God can; I don't care how hard you try, your not going to forgive like God forgives, because when He forgives our sins, they are forgotten; so try doing that to those that sin against you; heck, try doing that with your own sins! When I think about how much God loves me, it breaks my heart constantly; over and over, I remember how I have sinned against Him; over and over, I see Jesus hanging on that cross, paying a price for my sins, and then thinking of the sins that I have committed, even after having received Him into my heart. Talk about hoping for something; if it were not for God's unchanging Word, I would have given up hoping long ago. But God, He does not store up those things and use them against His children! Not like we are so very capable of doing; not the way we use the trespasses of other like stones in the building of a fortress; a fortress not of honor, but of despair. And I know the whole concept of His love verses our love is really hard to understand, but it is based upon an unconditional love; something we can hardly understand, let alone put into practice with each other, because we always establish conditions when it comes to relationships, even though we don't even realize that we are doing it. If you think that I an wrong, then see how much you still love someone that you think has wronged you; let alone, still love someone that has drastically wronged you. The whole idea behind our fear of God, is not because He is capable of crushing us like a bug, but because He sees us; we know He sees us, and yet He has mercy upon us! And, as far as our "hope in His mercy" goes, we actually tend to expect it; a little too much sometimes, but we expect it, nonetheless. In Luke 17:3-4, Jesus is sharing about forgiveness, saying, "Take heed to yourselves: If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive him. And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again to thee, saying, I repent; thou shalt forgive him." Then, in Matthew 18:21, which was about that same time, Peter approached Jesus with this question, asking, "Lord, how often shall my bother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?" In other words, Peter was using what Jesus had said about a brother trespassing seven times, and was trying to get Jesus to verify how many times in a day we should let a brother trespass against us. Jesus answered Peter by saying: "I say unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven." That is seventy times seven in a single day, which is 490 times in a day; meaning, in a twenty four hour period, less than every three minutes. Yet, that is how God forgives those that repent of their sins: that is our great hope... "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:9)