The “But First, God” 3-Day Bible Plan With Julie Chen MoonvesSample

Hi, I’m Julie Chen Moonves! Welcome to Day 2 of my 3 Day But First, God Bible plan. As you know by now, I put God first by starting everything with a prayer… so let’s get right to it!

Heavenly Father, thank You for this day and for life. Thank you for always providing everything we need and not what we actually deserve. May we see You in all your wonderful creations around us. May Your voice be the loudest one in our heads. May we have our hearts be in alignment with Yours and be pleasing to You all day. I pray all those listening, hear Your wisdom in this Bible plan, especially today as we learn how to forgive. In Your Holy name we pray, amen.

“For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father, will not forgive your sins.” Matthew 6:14, 15.

This lesson on forgiveness was something that took me 8 years to learn after being betrayed by a former coworker who was also a close friend. It wasn’t until I began to put God first in my life that I learned how to forgive and why it’s a must.

As you’re about to hear in this excerpt from my audio memoir But First, God I took a few days off from my job cohosting the daytime talk show The Talk… but it was while I was away that the knives came out….

I went on vacation towards the end of season one for a big family reunion celebrating my father-in-law's 90th birthday. And I remember coming back and the room was very, very icy.

Only to find out that a couple of my co-hosts, while I was away, went to the network and said, we can't work with Julie anymore. She's too uptight. She's not one of us. If she stays, we go. And they ended up leaving and I ended up staying. But what was so hurtful and challenging about this time was that one of the people who left was someone who I became like overnight best friends with after working on The Talk.

And that was Leah Remini. We were buddies. We were like going on vacation together, and when she went to the network with this request, I felt betrayed.

I completely iced her out and we didn't talk for years. It took almost a decade, but in his own time, God entered the picture big time. After not speaking to Leah Remini for eight years, I attended a party where her husband, Angelo, was the entertainer. He is a phenomenal singer and salsa dancer, and there he was up on stage.

I could feel God softening my heart. And if I didn't have Jesus in my life at that point, I wouldn't have gone out of my way to hunt him down and say hello.

So during one of Angelo's break, My husband and I went up to him, Hey, how you doing? We hugged and I said, you know what? Let's take a selfie.

After he took the selfie, I asked Angelo for Leah's cell phone number. Yes. I had deleted it at that point. And he said, you know what? Call her. She'd love to hear from you. And I didn't know if I could, I didn't know if I had it in me, but I know God says to forgive. So I called her, she answered. We laughed. We buried the hatchet. And today we're probably closer than ever.

Leah did try to apologize to me a year after our friendship blew up, but I was too hard-hearted to accept it. Without faith in my life, I didn't understand the importance of forgiveness, but the Bible tells us very clearly to forgive one another.

Thank you for listening to today’s But First, God Bible plan.

When we put God first, all things are possible and actually become easy…even the act of forgiveness.

Let us close in prayer:

Lord God,

Thank You for teaching us how to forgive and why we must forgive others. You demonstrated the ultimate act of forgiveness when dying on the cross, You asked Your Heavenly Father to forgive those who unjustly crucified You. In Luke chapter 23 verse 34 You clearly state:

“Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

Thank You for making Yourself the sacrificial lamb and dying for OUR sins so we would have a way back to You. It is in Your Holy name we pray, 🙏 Amen.

Please come back tomorrow for our last day of this 3 day But First, God Bible plan that shows when we put God first in our lives, all things are possible. Tomorrow, hear all about my medical miracle!