Fully Persuaded that God Loves and Forgives You

Fully Persuaded That God Loves and Cares for You

Reverends Michele Owes and Diana P. Cherry

[00:00:00]

Rev. Michele Owes: Welcome back to the Teachable Woman Podcast. We are excited to be with you today. I am Reverend Michele Owes. I am with the one and only Reverend Mrs. Diana P. Cherry. Together, we are Teachers of Good Things.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Yes.

Rev. Michele Owes: Mrs. Cherry, please say hello to our podcast family.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Hello. God's best. It is my prayer that as we minister today, you will be, without a doubt, fully persuaded that God can do what he said he would do and that you obey him so that you might be the recipient of the things that He will do that he said he will do.

Rev. Michele Owes: Well, there's. The last time we were together in our podcast, we talked about being fully persuaded. We shared with you the story of. Abraham believed that despite the state of his body [00:01:00] and his wife's body, he thought it was imputed unto him as righteousness. Romans 14-chapter, verse five says, let every man be fully persuaded. Own. We shared that we cannot live off anyone else's persuasion. Jesus Christ is a free-will choice, and each of us must choose him to work on the dev, on the development of our relationship with him. To be fully persuaded means to be completely assured. It means to be entirely accomplished with evidence that we most surely believe there's full proof of; in other words, there is no doubt.

Romans 8:21 tells us that, and being fully [00:02:00] persuaded that what he had promised, he was able also to perform, and that was Abraham again, he was fully persuaded that what God had promised him, which was that he was going to be the father of many nations, but he was up in age and didn't believe that things were going to work out quite that way. Not at the beginning. He was fully persuaded that he who made the promise could also perform it. So, we are in a state of topsy-turvy. We don't know what to expect with each passing day. Things are changing. What we consider normal is no longer the norms for our country, but as Christians must still remain fully persuaded in our own minds that God is still God, that [00:03:00] Jesus is Lord, and that God loves us. love is never failing and that he will not forsake us. One of the great hopes that Mrs. Cherry and I had was that the unrest that we are experiencing on a day-to-day basis would draw us to our knees to call upon our Savior. We believe it will cause us to develop a deeper, abiding relationship. A relationship in prayer. One that we could seek God and know that he hears us and will answer us. And so that's a summary of our first podcast of fully persuading. And Mrs. Chair, do you want to share with us from here?

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: No, I'm going to let you give those wonderful points, and I'm going to feed in on them. Yeah,

Rev. Michele Owes: Amen.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: I know where you're going. I know what's in your heart. I want to hear you touch on whichever one you want to [00:04:00] deal with first. I'll add on.

Rev. Michele Owes: Okay. Thank you. Alright, that sounds good.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Yeah.

Rev. Michele Owes: Well, if we're going to be fully persuaded, the first thing we must be persuaded of is that God loves me.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Hmm

Rev. Michele Owes: You must be persuaded that God loves you and his love for you will not fail. His love for me is not contingent upon anything. He just loves you.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: It’s Unconditional.

Rev. Michele Owes: His love for us never fails.

Rev. Michele Owes: That's right. His love for us is unconditional. Now, that's a word that is rarely used for any other thing other than to express the kind of love that God asked for us because almost everything that we know in life is conditional.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Mm-hmm.

Rev. Michele Owes: And even sometimes the love that we express toward others or that others express toward us, they'll love us as long [00:05:00] as this is in order or as long as we do that. or if this is happening the way one would want things to happen, but if not. Then maybe not. We've had people who promised to be with us; they stood at the altar and said they would be with us forever and flew the coup. And so their love was healing. It was not the unconditional type of love that God offers us. the Bible says that there's no shadow of turning in him. God is not a turncoat. He's not going, we're not going to look up one day, and he's playing for the other side. He is a boy who is going to love Christ Rice. And then we live in Romans and verse number. 37 to 39, Nay in all these things. We are more than conquerors [00:06:00] through him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height nor death, nor any other creature, shouldn't be able to separate us from the love of

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Mm-hmm.

Rev. Michele Owes: which is in Christ Jesus,

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Oh Lord, yes.

Rev. Michele Owes: So that is saying that no super glue. No gorilla glue, nothing is able to separate us from the love of God.

Rev. Michele Owes: I don't care how permanent you say, it's nothing can separate us from the love of God. God's just not giving up on his creation, mankind. He's not giving up on us. We fail, we disappoint, we disobey,

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Okay.

Rev. Michele Owes: We try to follow our plan. [00:07:00] God's love for us has never failed.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: I want to share a true story. Sometimes it's encouraging to hear a true story that just happened over the past weekend, and it's, it's almost miraculous. Perhaps it is miraculous. But I have a friend who lives a little bit farther away from where I live in California, and we visit each other.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: So she was talking to me and she said, you know, I was studying God's word and when I finished, God said, share it. And she said, I'm not a preacher. What do you mean share it? Well, the very next day, someone knocked on her door. They don't open their door for people, but her husband opened the door and there was a lady there and she says, does so and so live here?

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: And he said yes. And he called his wife. So she comes, and she's a counselor, so she thought maybe it [00:08:00] was one of her clients she'd forgotten about, and the lady said, I've come, I look, I was hoping this was your house. It's a miracle because I've been here before, but it's been years. So when I knocked, I wasn't sure it was you.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Our little group sent me here to ask if you would share the word of God with us on Saturday. Miracle. Okay. So then I call this person and I say to them, you know, I'm gonna come and support you. I'll drive up. And they said, no, we'll come and get you. So I go all the way, about an hour or so away, to be with this friend of mine who's not a seasoned teacher.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: I'm sitting at her dining room table. And one of my daughters from the parent church sent me a video. I hit play, which I [00:09:00] shouldn't have done, sitting at somebody's table, and we're having a conversation. It was my husband offering a call to healing for everybody who had been diagnosed with cancer.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: The altar filled up. This was back in 2016. The altar filled up with people, and as we sit there, I'm like, do you realize that God loves you? She had gotten a similar diagnosis. God loves you so much that he moved my little daughter's heart to send me a video of my husband who is praying against the very thing that she had been diagnosed with.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: And we teared up. He said, God loves you so much. He's got your former pastor praying for you again from heaven. And I looked at the people who answered the altar call. [00:10:00] There was a minister who had pancreatic cancer. He's still living. There were people in the choir. He is still living, and this was years ago.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Listen, don't you dare ever think that God doesn't know you, that he doesn't care that he will go to any length to get a word to you to comfort your heart. I mean, why would I say I wanna be there for her? And why would my little daughter send me that video at that time, and why would I play it when I, that's rude to play a video and you're sitting at somebody's dining room table.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: But God is able, if we stay fully persuaded, he will go to any height, depth, length. He'll do anything to get a word to us. But she obeyed him. She agreed to. Teach to the small group of people. [00:11:00] God laid upon my heart to go support her. My little daughter was led by God to send me this video, and God prayed for her ministered to her.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: So don't ever doubt the power of God. I just think

Rev. Michele Owes: Amen.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: in view of you talking about love, what better testimony could we share than a real one that just happened this past weekend. I've been telling everybody about it.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: God is.

Rev. Michele Owes: God's love is amazing. He's a master networker, and there's no way we can see what he is doing when he doesn't even need our help. He just needs our obedience, you obeyed by going, she obeyed by writing the message, the daughter obeyed by sending you the video and you both listened to it,

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Yeah.

Rev. Michele Owes: So just it requires our obedience. If you had decided not to go, you would've missed it.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: [00:12:00] Right, right. It's.

Rev. Michele Owes: You would've

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Amazing obedience. We teach the spiritual principle of obedience. Obedience brings the reward. Disobedience will always bring strife, death, sin, problems, and turmoil. But obedience,

Rev. Michele Owes: yes.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Obedience is always being in right standing with God's will. It brings the reward. I just wanted to share that story.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Yeah.

Rev. Michele Owes: Thank you and it's a good story to share. It is, and I'm sure share for sure, excuse me, that anyone who may be listening who has had a diagnosis like that, wants to know that God still cares and knows that he will somehow have a word to them well.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Yeah.

Rev. Michele Owes: just keep your heart open. Obey Do what you need to do. Obey the known instructions and watch God work in your life. [00:13:00] Amen.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Amen.

Rev. Michele Owes: So the next thing I wanted to share with us is that we have to be fully persuaded that God forgives us

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Yes.

Rev. Michele Owes: there is absolutely none perfect and accept one and that is Jesus Christ. And all of us have sinned and come short of the glory of God. And there are going to be days because Paul told us that there's a battle and a war going on within our members. And there'll be some days that we win the battle and there'll be some days that we. Whatever that is, whichever day you are on, know that God forgives you and that he is not holding your sin against you.

Rev. Michele Owes: He has thrown it in the sea of forgetfulness, we tend to hold our, our failures and our sins and our misgivings against [00:14:00] ourselves, and they become weights for

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Mm-hmm.

Rev. Michele Owes: And they become things that cause us to put our head down. But the word of God says that he is the lifter of our head. causes us to have no joy, but the joy of the Lord is our

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Mm-hmm.

Rev. Michele Owes: and all we're saying is get back to the Lord. Repent and make that. Change, whatever change it is that God is asking for you to make because he is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us of all unrighteousness. So whatever it is we may have done whatever it may be that we may have not done, 'cause it can be omission or commission, one it is, that's God to cleanse you of the

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Mm-hmm.

Rev. Michele Owes: what calls may not to

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Mm-hmm.

Rev. Michele Owes: You calls me to do this thing that you might not be pleased with. When God shares the calls with us, what we [00:15:00] learn to punish it through the word of God, go through the word of God and find out what applies to my situation. And then study the word of God. Memorize the scripture. Just roll it over in your mind over and over and over again, and allowed God to punish the thought with you. And when we say punish the thought, we're talking about punishment like we grew up on punishment. Can't come out of the. Full week or two or three in the summertime, go work with your friends. I'm not talking about that kind of punishment. We're talking about the fact that you're doing something to cause you to grow in Christ Jesus, and that's always a win. So we have to be fully persuaded

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Yeah.

Rev. Michele Owes: God me, that God forgives you, whatever you may have done, whatever I may have done. God is a forgiving God.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Mm-hmm. Yep. Just wanna remind us that we've been taught that, you know, if we confess our [00:16:00] sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us, as you said and to cleanse us. Now, forgiveness takes care of the act. You know, you've forgiven. You don't have to keep asking God. He's not hard of hearing. We don't have to keep saying it over and over and over because every time we repeat a thing, it stays active in our lives and in our minds.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: So when we confess he forgives, that takes care of the act. But like Reverend Mis os just said, we have to go on and. And get rid of and take care of the cleansing. He's faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us. Now, we love to be forgiven, but sometimes we don't want to be cleansed because we want to do that again.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Once we are forgiven, we also have to go beyond forgiveness. And get ourselves cleansed from whatever it was that caused us to sin in the first place. When God forgives [00:17:00] us, he forgives us totally. Sometimes, the most difficult thing for us to do is to forgive ourselves, but it does God no good does us no good for us to focus and live in the past, the past.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: It is past, and you cannot live in the present and in the past at the same time; it cannot coexist in now and then. You have really gotta work on the mind and know that if God has forgiven you, he loves you. You are his child. You know what? You don't have a right not to forgive yourself. How dare you hold something against God's child.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Which you are.

Rev. Michele Owes: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Live in the present, and please do your best [00:18:00] with your anointed intellects, with your power of choice, with your will. Do the best you can to forgive yourself and move on. By the way, that was the message that that young lady taught on Sunday was Move on.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: You cannot stay. Fixed where you are, you've gotta move on, move on with your life, move on with the godly relationships, and yet move on with your church. Participation, move on. No matter what happens, you don't have a right not to forgive yourself because you are God's child.

Rev. Michele Owes: Amen. I like to use an example. Mrs. Cherry and I often do this in the women's fellowship or even when talking with someone. You mentioned that the past is in the past, and the only way it gets to come into the future is if we drag it up there. But one of the natural examples I like to use is to have someone. [00:19:00] Walk away from me to another area but look back at me while they try to walk. When they're looking back at me and trying to move forward, they don't move with confidence and certainty. They move very carefully and sometimes painstakingly. They don't want to hit a door or run into anything because they're looking back at me, and then I ask them to come back. Repeat the same act, but this time with your head looking at where you're going. The walk is entirely different. It's with confidence, it's with direction, it's with a certainty. when we bring the past into the present, we are constantly looking back. We're not able to move forward with an assurance.

Rev. Michele Owes: We're not able to move forward with a level of confidence because we're still focusing on what happened back then.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Oh, yes.

Rev. Michele Owes: Go back where, God would have [00:20:00] us, cast our eyes up on Him.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Mm-hmm.

Rev. Michele Owes: and to move in the direction that he is leading us by His Holy Spirit without feeling like we have to carry the weight of the past with us because we weren't designed. Forth. We've got grace that is sufficient.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Yeah. Yeah.

Rev. Michele Owes: We have new mercies every morning, and our grace is sufficient. When we try to drag in the past weakness, it weighs us down.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Yes.

Rev. Michele Owes: It causes our movement to be slow. We don't get there at the same speed. We don't get there with the same level of energy.

Rev. Michele Owes: We don't get there with the same assurance and confidence in the Lord that we would if we just obey him and move forward in the direction that he's moving us

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Right. And you know, the thing is when we look past, you know, look to the past, we are disobeying the scripture because the word of God tells us to lay aside [00:21:00] the weight and the sin. So, you know, you lay aside the sin, okay, I'm forgiven. But now you got to get rid of that weight. That weight will pull you right back to where God has delivered you from.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Reverend Owes, that is such a good example. You can't look back and walk forward.

Rev. Michele Owes: You cannot.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Yeah,

Rev. Michele Owes: stand up.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: that's really good.

Rev. Michele Owes: Well, that brings us to the end of this podcast. We were so excited about being with you in July. Listen to the commercials that are coming forward. We've got a commercial for Bring Seven. We want to make sure that you hear it, and we're looking forward to your sharing about this podcast.

Rev. Michele Owes: You are sharing about the retreat that's going to be July the 17th through the 20th in Houston, Texas. At the Western Oak Hotel, we are not going to look back at all the trauma and the drama of the days [00:22:00] that we have had in this nation. We are going to move forward in the things of God. Those are

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Yes.

Rev. Michele Owes: We're following up and look forward to you being there with us.

Rev. Michele Owes: We will see you on our next podcast. Ms. Terry,

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Amen. Amen. And remember, it's worth your investment. To get relief from all you're going through, be with us. We promise we'll lift you up, and you'll leave. Not like you came in Jesus' name.