Latest / Reflections On The Word With Richard Kay / Forgiveness - I Can Only Imagine | Episode #423 | Encore Episode #094

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Forgiveness - I Can Only Imagine | Episode #423 | Encore Episode #094 · Reflections On The Word With Richard Kay

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  Speaker 1: Great is Thy faithfulness. Great is Thy faithfulness. Morning by
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  Speaker 1: morning new mercies I see. Great is Thy faithfulness. All
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  Speaker 1: I have needed thy hand hath provided. Great is thy faithfulness, Lord,
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  Speaker 1: unto me.
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  Speaker 2: Welcome to today's edition of Reflection on the Word with
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  Speaker 2: Richard Kay. I'm Chuck Christie, and today we are asking
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  Speaker 2: you to spend a few moments of your time with
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  Speaker 2: us each day as Richard shares from God's Word notes, quotes,
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  Speaker 2: and stories, along with some of his own personal experiences,
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  Speaker 2: to confirm for you God's great love for us, that
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  Speaker 2: His compassion for us never fails, and that He has
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  Speaker 2: a great faithfulness toward us in every regard. Now, if
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  Speaker 2: you miss a portion of today's broadcast or would like
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  Speaker 2: to recommend it to a friend, you can hear this
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  Speaker 2: program anytime online at TalkNetworkRadio.com. Well now, here's Richard with
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  Speaker 2: today's reflection.
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  Speaker 3: Music I can only imagine What it will be like
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  Speaker 3: When I walk by your side I can only imagine
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  Speaker 3: What my eyes will see When.
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  Speaker 4: Your face is before me I can.
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  Speaker 3: Only imagine.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah.
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  Speaker 6: Surrounded by your glory, what will my heart feel? Will
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  Speaker 6: I dance for you, Jesus, or in awe of you
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  Speaker 6: be still?
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  Speaker 3: Will I stand in.
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  Speaker 6: Your presence, or to my knees will I fall?
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  Speaker 5: Will I sing hallelujah? Will I be able to speak
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  Speaker 5: at all like an I can only imagine I.
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  Speaker 7: Can only imagine When that day comes And I find
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  Speaker 7: myself Standing in the sun I can only imagine When
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  Speaker 7: all I would do Is forever Forever worship you Only imagine,
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  Speaker 7: yeah I can only imagine.
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  Speaker 8: Surrounded by your glory One where my heart feels Will
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  Speaker 8: I dance for you, Jesus Or in awe of you
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  Speaker 8: be still Will I stand in your presence Or to
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  Speaker 8: my knees walk Will I be able to speak at all?
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  Speaker 3: I can only imagine. Yeah, I can only imagine.
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  Speaker 1: Will I stand in your presence or to my knees?
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  Speaker 1: Will I fall? Will I sing hallelujah? I can only
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  Speaker 1: imagine I can only.
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  Speaker 4: Imagine When all I would do is forever, forever worship you.
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  Speaker 3: I can only imagine.
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  Speaker 9: This song, honestly, your relationship with your dad, I know
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  Speaker 9: it'll be unpacked in the movie, but.
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  Speaker 10: Take us there.
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  Speaker 9: Yeah, my parents divorced when I was three, and I
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  Speaker 9: lived with my dad. My mom remarried a couple times,
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  Speaker 9: but in third grade, she remarried and moved from outside
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  Speaker 9: of Dallas to San Antonio. They thought it was best
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  Speaker 9: for my brother and I to stay with my dad
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  Speaker 9: in this small town in Greenville, Texas. Yeah, right. Somebody
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  Speaker 9: cheered for Greenville. But just that we'd stay kind of
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  Speaker 9: with the rest of the family, stuff like that. The
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  Speaker 9: thing that we didn't realize, my dad became very abusive
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  Speaker 9: towards me. Not so much my brother, but I don't
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  Speaker 9: remember many weeks. I wasn't beaten three or four times
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  Speaker 9: a week for most of my life until about... I
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  Speaker 9: guess my freshman year in high school, my dad was
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  Speaker 9: diagnosed with cancer. And I got the front row seat
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  Speaker 9: to see the gospel transform this man from a monster
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  Speaker 9: to the godliest man I've ever known. And by the
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  Speaker 9: time he passed away, this was the guy I wanted
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  Speaker 9: to be like when I grew up. And so leaving
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  Speaker 9: the gravesite, my grandmother said, I can only imagine what
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  Speaker 9: Bob's seeing in heaven. And as a 19-year-old, I became
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  Speaker 9: completely obsessed with heaven. Not because I was some spiritual giant.
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  Speaker 9: It was almost like OCD. It was like a tick
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  Speaker 9: for me to imagine him being whole and looking at
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  Speaker 9: an empty bedroom. And so I became obsessed. I would
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  Speaker 9: write I Can Only Imagine down on everything I could
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  Speaker 9: get my hands on. If I was on hold on
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  Speaker 9: a phone, remember when phones were on a wall and
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  Speaker 9: had a cord? Remember that a long time ago? Well,
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  Speaker 9: if I was on hold, I'd be doodling Imagine on
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  Speaker 9: anything I get my hands on for years. And so
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  Speaker 9: I started Mercy Me. We were doing an independent record,
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  Speaker 9: and we needed one more song for the album, and
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  Speaker 9: I was looking for a blank page to write on,
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  Speaker 9: and every page and every journal I had had I
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  Speaker 9: Can Only Imagine written on it.
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  Speaker 10: So I was like, all right, God, I get it.
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  Speaker 9: And I wrote it in about 10 minutes, but it
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  Speaker 9: had been in my heart for a few years, and
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  Speaker 9: I knew it was special, but I had no idea
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  Speaker 9: I'd ever be sitting here 20 years later talking about it.
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  Speaker 10: Scripture says that the greatest act of love is forgiveness.
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  Speaker 10: And I can tell you, folks, if you have been
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  Speaker 10: listening to the earlier part of this particular segment, you
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  Speaker 10: were listening to a song written by a young man
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  Speaker 10: who grew up with tremendous abuse and a tremendous misunderstood father.
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  Speaker 10: And the father certainly misunderstood his role with his son.
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  Speaker 10: But something changed him and he became a remarkable individual
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  Speaker 10: because God entered his life through forgiveness by Jesus Christ.
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  Speaker 10: And because of that, he wanted to make things right
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  Speaker 10: with his son. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and
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  Speaker 10: afterwards his son waited on him through his treatments and
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  Speaker 10: all the things that he experienced until he actually passed away.
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  Speaker 10: And it was not until many years later that the
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  Speaker 10: song I Can Only Imagine was written by Bart Millard.
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  Speaker 10: This is an amazing story of love and forgiveness. And
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  Speaker 10: the reason that we utilized it today was because it
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  Speaker 10: demonstrates that God's forgiveness can reach into the most abused
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  Speaker 10: relationships and heal them. You know, it's an amazing thing
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  Speaker 10: that the song that Bart Millard wrote after he formed
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  Speaker 10: the group Mercy Meat was actually in his heart from
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  Speaker 10: the very first whipping that he ever had. from his dead.
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  Speaker 10: And yet, he came to know the man that was
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  Speaker 10: transformed by the forgiveness of the Lord Jesus. And because
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  Speaker 10: of that, he had a transformed life as well. He
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  Speaker 10: became the man that wrote his life song, I can
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  Speaker 10: only imagine. Well, folks, It is not just to glorify
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  Speaker 10: Bart Millard and his life, but rather to glorify the
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  Speaker 10: change that was in the lives of his father and
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  Speaker 10: of his own family. In fact, his mother, according to
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  Speaker 10: the actual accounts reconciled with his father, after many years
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  Speaker 10: of being apart. I don't mean that they were remarried.
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  Speaker 10: I just simply mean she forgave him as well. And
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  Speaker 10: when his father passed away, when that happened, this was
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  Speaker 10: a change that affected the whole family. In fact, it
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  Speaker 10: probably affected the entire town of Greenville, Texas. You know,
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  Speaker 10: I looked at that movie and I saw something portrayed
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  Speaker 10: on a screen that was very hard to conceive how
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  Speaker 10: well it was presented and forgiveness was actually demonstrated. You see, believer,
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  Speaker 10: The thing that we have to begin to understand is
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  Speaker 10: that the transforming power of the Lord Jesus Christ and
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  Speaker 10: the infilling of the Holy Spirit can cause us to
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  Speaker 10: become sons and daughters of God. And because of that,
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  Speaker 10: we can be transformed. The Bible says that we are
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  Speaker 10: are new creations that old things have passed away. Everything
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  Speaker 10: has become new. If you had an opportunity to hear
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  Speaker 10: the song, I'm sure you have many times, but if
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  Speaker 10: you had the opportunity to see the movie, I can
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  Speaker 10: only imagine, I can tell you that it is a
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  Speaker 10: very profound story. one that will touch any heart and
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  Speaker 10: certainly demonstrates the forgiveness of God. Not only the forgiveness
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  Speaker 10: that is achieved because of God and his payment for
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  Speaker 10: our sin, but because of how that forgiveness can be
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  Speaker 10: transferred to others, even in the most abusive of family situations.
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  Speaker 10: Perhaps you know someone who may have been abused. Maybe
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  Speaker 10: they have suffered greatly throughout their life. There's only one
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  Speaker 10: real cure, and that's forgiveness. No matter what happened, forgiveness
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  Speaker 10: will heal all of those wounds. It doesn't take to
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  Speaker 10: be able to understand that the one who is forgiven
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  Speaker 10: much can forgive much as well. With Jesus as Lord
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  Speaker 10: of our life and the Holy Spirit leading and guiding
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  Speaker 10: our every move, we can be used of God to
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  Speaker 10: forgive those who are hurting in whatever manner, because of
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  Speaker 10: what sin has brought in their lives. And because of that,
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  Speaker 10: we can fulfill the Great Commission and proclaim the gospel
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  Speaker 10: to a lost and hurting world simply because God gives
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  Speaker 10: us the ability to forgive.
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  Speaker 2: Richard, we'll be right back in a moment to wrap up.
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  Speaker 2: But if you just joined us, you've been listening to
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  Speaker 2: Reflections on the Word with Richard Kay. You can hear
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  Speaker 2: this message in its entirety again online, as well as
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  Speaker 2: Richard's entire archive at talknetworkradio.com. We would like to acknowledge
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  Speaker 2: our theme song, How Great Is Thy Faithfulness, from the
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  Speaker 2: America's 25 Favorite Hymns album. Unless otherwise expressed, scriptures are
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  Speaker 2: read from the Holman Christian Standard Bible, which is published
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  Speaker 2: by Holman Bible Publishers in Nashville, Tennessee. Additional resources used
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  Speaker 2: for Reflections on the Word with Richard Kay include Great
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  Speaker 2: is Thy Faithfulness by Our Daily Bread and printed by
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  Speaker 2: Discovery House Publishers. Again, here is Richard to wrap up
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  Speaker 2: today's message.
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  Speaker 10: Is there someone in your life, believer, that you need
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  Speaker 10: to forgive? I ask that you pray about it, that
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  Speaker 10: you think very definitely about what it means, not only
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  Speaker 10: to them, but also to you. You see, this is
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  Speaker 10: one of the healing virtues of forgiveness. It not only
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  Speaker 10: will set the captive free that you forgive, but it
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  Speaker 10: will set you free as well. And that is today's
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  Speaker 10: reflection on the Word.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you, Richard. Join us again tomorrow when we continue
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  Speaker 2: with the next edition of Reflections on the.
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  Speaker 3: Word with Richard Kay.
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  Speaker 2: For Richard and the entire team, this is Chuck Christie
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  Speaker 2: saying thanks for listening to this edition of Reflections on
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  Speaker 2: the Word.
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  Speaker 1: Great is thy faithfulness, born unto me. Great is thy faithfulness, Lord,
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  Speaker 1: unto Thee.