Pastor Marc Bertrand

The Gift of Forgiveness(learn to forgive). “I forgive you” can be hard to say. Forgiving people who have hurt us, wronged us, or abused us is difficult. We have to work at forgiveness. I know I do. Forgiveness is not always on offer immediately, or freely given. Sometimes, we feel people don’t deserve to be forgiven for the harm they have done. We have to make a conscious decision to stop being angry or resentful. Sometimes, I don’t forgive. I know I should, especially because Jesus encourages us to, and we are told it’s good to. Google says so. But, often I don’t want to release them from being responsible, or give that person the opportunity to behave in the same way again. It takes time to work through the pain. We shouldn’t diminish this process. We should not feel guilty or pressured into forgiving before we are ready. So, our reply is sometimes a “yes,” other times it’s “maybe,” and also it can be “not right now.” Forgiveness is at the heart of relationships that go well. Also, w...

“Of You It Is Required to Forgive” A spirit of forgiveness and an attitude of love and compassion toward those who may have wronged us is of the very essence of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Each of us has need of this spirit. The whole world has need of it. The Lord taught it. He exemplified it as none other has exemplified it. In the time of his agony on the cross of Calvary, with vile and hatef ul accusers before him, those who had brought him to this terrible crucifixion, he cried out, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” (Luke 23:34.) None of us is called on to forgive so generously, but each of us is under a divinely spoken obligation to reach out with pardon and mercy. The Lord has declared in words of revelation: “My disciples, in days of old, sought occasion against one another and forgave not one another in their hearts; and for this evil they were afflicted and sorely chastened. “Wherefore, I say unto you, that ye ought to forgive one another; for he that f...

David’s Plea for Forgiveness. “Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities” (v. 9). - Psalm 51:1–9. Repentance for sin and serving Christ go hand in hand, such that you cannot repent for sin unless you are a servant of Christ, and you cannot serve Christ unless you repent for sin. Generations of Christians have understood this, for the first command our Savior ever gave was, “Repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15). And throughout all generations, believers have turned to Psalm 51 for assistance in expressing their repentance to the Lord. As the superscript to Psalm 51 tells us, this psalm was prompted by David’s response “when Nathan the prophet went to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.” When the words of God came to David through the prophet Nathan, David turned from his sin (2 Sam. 12:1–15a). This is in keeping with how the Lord works faith in our hearts. Just as faith comes by the hearing of the Word of God (Rom. 10:17), so does repentance, for repentan...

What is the Christian message anyway? The Christian message was first preached approximately 2000 years ago and it hasn't changed since then. However there are so many so-called Christian institutions and traditions that it is now difficult to discover what the message actually is. This short post provides the basic elements. The word “gospel” is a Greek word that means nothing more than “good n ews” and good news is what you should expect to be hearing when you learn about the Christian message. Before we can understand or appreciate the good news we need to first be clear about a few other things. First, your existence is not going to end when your body dies. The spirit of a person outlives the body and death is merely a doorway through which your spirit will pass. A butterfly, a pupae and a caterpiller are all stages of the same creature and in a similar way our life on earth is just a stage that we pass through on our way to somewhere else. Second, the world was created by a G...

Did Christ die for all sin except for the sin of unbelief? If He died for all sin, why do people still go to hell for the sin of unbelief?" “He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:2). When the Bible says that Christ was the sacrifice for all sin, it does not mean that all sin was automatically forgiven. It simply means t hat the offering to secure forgiveness for the whole world has been made; whether that offering actually results in the forgiveness of any individual is another matter, because the offering must be accepted by faith. Our way back to God has been prepared by Christ; the question now is, we will avail ourselves of the opportunity? Christ died for all sin; that is, His sacrifice was completely sufficient to pay for the sins of the entire world. But forgiveness only comes to an individual when he or she repents and believes Mark 1:15). Until we accept (by faith) the provision of God in Chris...

"Is the atonement of Christ unlimited?" The Bible has much to say on the atonement of Christ. The question is whether His sacrifice provided limited or unlimited atonement. The word atonement means “satisfaction or reparation for a wrong or injury; amends.” The doctrine of unlimited atonement states that Christ died for all people, whether or not they would ever believe in Him. When applied to Jesus’ finished work on the cross, atonement concerns the reconciliation of God and humankind, as accomplished through the suffering and death of Christ. Paul highlights the atoning work of Jesus when he says, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his l...

Atonement: face-to-face with God. "What are the various theories on the atonement?" Throughout church history, several different views of the atonement, some true and some false, have been put forth by different individuals or denominations. One of the reasons for the various views is that both the Old and New Testaments reveal many truths about Christ’s atonement, making it hard, if not impossi ble, to find any single “theory” that fully encapsulates or explains the richness of the atonement. What we discover as we study the Scriptures is a rich and multifaceted picture of the atonement as the Bible puts forth many interrelated truths concerning the redemption that Christ has accomplished. Another contributing factor to the many different theories of the atonement is that much of what we can learn about the atonement needs to be understood from the experience and perspective of God’s people under the Old Covenant sacrificial system. The atonement of Christ, its purpose and ...

What is sexual temptation? There are different types of temptations. Chief among them are pride, money and sex. Many Christians have fallen, are falling and will continue to fall because of pride, money and sex. Families, great men and women of God as well as great ministries have been destroyed either because of financial or sexual scandals. This is partly because there are not many churches that teach their members on the dangers of succumbing to any one of these temptations as well as what one can do when tempted. Due to the lack of knowledge in this area, some people have perished while others continue to perish. “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge” – Hosea 4:6 So, what is sexual temptation? It is simply temptation of a sexual nature. It is being enticed, persuaded or seduced into engaging in a prohibited sexual act. Anyone who engages in a prohibited sexual act becomes by virtue of that act, sexually immoral. In other words, sexual temp...