Tag Archives: unity

Forgiveness is a Lifestyle

Christian Life, , ,

FORGIVENESS IS A LIFESTYLE

“‘Be alert. If you see your friend going wrong, correct him. If he responds, forgive him. Even if it’s personal against you and repeated seven times in a day. and seven times comes back to you and says, ‘I’m sorry. I won’t do it again,’ forgive him.'” Luke 17:3-4 (The Message).

What Jesus is advocating here is not reluctant and sporadic forgiveness but a generous and open-hearted attitude to people who offend us as a reflection of the Father’s attitude towards us in spite of the way we behave towards Him.

Forgiveness is the foundation of our relationship with God, and His forgiveness stands securely on what Jesus did on the cross. He paid the debt of all the sin of all people for all time when He gave up His life as a sin offering for us.

When we sin against another person, we sin against God. David understood this. He had Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah, killed in battle to justify his lust and adultery but, when his sin was exposed, he cried out to God, “‘Against you, you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge.'” Psalm 51:4 (NIV).

Sin incurs an unpayable debt and only because of God’s mercy, made available to us through Jesus, can He cancel our sin and clear our record of guilt. Because the blood of Jesus has washed us clean of sin for all time, there is nothing that can separate us from His love.

However, God requires a reciprocal attitude from us. Since He has already forgiven the sin of those who sin against us, we have no right to hold them guilty. To do so is to act illegally because we cannot demand payment for what had already been paid for. If we refuse to forgive another, we automatically cancel God’s forgiveness of us. Now that is a scary thought! That means that we will experience separation from God and have to bear our own guilt.

Not to forgive our fellow man for the paltry things he does against us is to misunderstand the greatness of the debt we incurred against God and the enormity of His mercy that provided a way of forgiveness at the cost of His own Son’s life. Because we tend to focus on what the other person has done to us rather than on what we did to God, we hold on to our offences instead of letting them go because we can.

But there is something deeper to this issue of forgiveness. God forgave us through the death of Jesus to restore the unity between Himself and us because the entire universe can only function properly as a unit. When the relationships between humans remain fractured through offenses and forgiveness, the whole of life unravels, leaving in its wake chaos and destruction.

Forgiveness is God’s way of restoring unity with Himself and unity between people. When we forgive and reconcile, we contribute to the healing of our world. When we refuse to forgive, we fail to co-operate with God in His work of restoring everything to its original purpose of reflecting Him in the universe. We add to the destruction of our world.

Since God has already cleared the debt of the one who sins against us, all that is required of us is to look the guilty person in the eyes and declare, “You owe me nothing.” It’s not about making excuses for their failure. It’s about setting them free from their debt and restoring the unity that expresses who God is. And that is not only an act but a lifestyle.

Disrupt and Confront

Christian Life, , , ,

DISRUPT AND CONFRONT

“‘I’ve come to disrupt and confront! From now on, when you find five in a house, it will be – three against two, and two against three, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against bride and bride against mother-in-law.'” Luke 12:52, 53 (The Message).

Is it Jesus’ intention to cause trouble in families? Never! That would be contrary to His nature as God. God is one – ECHAD – unity in diversity expressed by His essence, love. It is God’s intention to restore everything that Adam’s disobedience destroyed, to its original oneness in Himself. “For God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him (Jesus), and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through His blood shed on the cross.” Colossians 1:19, 20 (NIV).

Jesus is not speaking about intention but about outcome. He is stating the fact that a relationship with Him is so deep and so radical that it cuts across even the closest family ties. There is a deep-rooted underlying problem in the human heart of which Paul speaks in Romans 5:10 – “…we were God’s enemies…” Enmity against God causes us to resist someone else’s faith in Him, even in the very closest of family members. Our belief system which is shaped by the deception sown in our minds by God’s enemy, the devil, causes us to resist the truth and to oppose those who believe and receive God’s word.

There is a second flaw in our fallen human nature that persistently causes trouble. Unlike God, we do not respect other people’s freedom and right to make their own choices. We try to force our own beliefs and opinions on others, even resorting to murder if the other person refuses to see things our way. What kind of a god would require us to kill our own flesh and blood if he or she chooses to believe in Jesus? And yet it happens across the world.

Is this what Jesus desires? Certainly not! Jesus is not a blood-thirsty murderer, taking pleasure in disrupting and dividing families. We do it to ourselves by stubbornly trying to manipulate the conscience of another.

Why would people behave in such a drastic way to enforce their will on others? Is this not evidence of the source of their beliefs? Jesus accurately diagnosed the problem. He said, “Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” John 8:43, 44 (NIV).

It amazes me how stubbornly people hang on to their lies even if it means destroying another’s life. There is nothing more tragic than deception and self-deception – believing and basing one’s whole life on what is not true. God created the world to be a place of righteousness and peace for all people as a reflection of Himself. He gave us the freedom to make our own choices and to take responsibility for the choices we make. Hating and killing to enforce our will on another can never be right because it defeats the very purpose for which we were created.

Therefore we must conclude that disruption and division in families and in society must have its source in God’s enemy, the devil. Satan has one agenda – to steal from God the human race He created in His image to worship Him and to enjoy the blessing of being His sons and daughters. We should be alerted to our future by the hell we taste on earth now and will experience forever if we choose to believe his lies.