Forgiveness Momentum

How often should we forgive someone? Jesus says don't quit. (Matthew 18:22 in context) The story is of a man who owed an enormous amount to his 'master'. When the account was due there was no way for him to pay. He would be thrown in prison, the family and property would be sold to pay whatever could be raised. With the debt still unpaid, he would be a slave forever. He cries for patience and promised to pay it all. The wise master knows that there is no way. He was filled with pity and forgives the debt.

With his new freedom, the man (#1) finds a fellow servant (#2) that has borrowed a small amount from him (#1). #1 is choking #2 demanding repayment. He undoubtedly is thinking of his promise to pay back all that he owes the master. Time seems to have stopped for him at the moment that he made that foolish promise to repay all. He did not hear the words of forgiveness. He is stuck in time at the moments before he was forgiven. He is forgiven but doesn't know it. He acts like he is a debtor even though he has no debts. So he continues in his foolishness and demands repayment from #2. As #2 has fallen on the same hard times and can't repay, he is arrested, jailed until he can repay. It is impossible to repay in jail, so he is stuck.

Other servants tell the master about #1 failing to forgive #2. The wise master is angry and recalls servant #1, recalls the forgiveness, and jails #1.

So there in prison are two servants; #1 was forgiven but would not extend forgiveness to #2. They both end up in prison until their debts are paid.

Real forgiveness will keep on going as it frees people up to live a wonderful life in that freedom. Refusing forgiveness will keep on going and imprisoning individuals along with their neighbors, friends and family. God wants us all free. Don't stop the momentum of freedom, forgive.

Put down the mirror.

John 1:31 quotes John the Baptizer saying, "I myself did not know Him, but the reason I came baptizing with water was the He might be revealed to Israel." (capitalization mine)

Question: "How did John's baptism reveal Jesus to Israel?" The answer lies in the kind of baptism John was doing. It is clear from the scriptures that John's baptism was a baptism of repentance. John was calling to men to turn their life around, turn away from sin and turn toward God.

It is in this turning that the revealing begins. God does not push Himself on people. He has done a wonderful thing in revealing Himself to humanity. God is so high and distinctly different from the inhabitants of the earth that there is no way for us to know Him. We live on two very different planes. The only way that we could ever hope to become aware of Him is if He were to make Himself known to us. He has done that through nature, His Word, and His presence in this world via the God-man, Jesus Christ. He continues His revealing work through His Holy Spirit presence in those that ask for His forgiveness and guiding presence.

Even though He has revealed Himself, we still can't easily find him. Is it possible that we humans get so consumed with ourselves that we don't very often look to God for anything? God has the guiding answers that we need. Some become so proud of accomplishments and then get paranoid that others will try to steal away all that has been accumulated. We can get consumed with "me." We stand in front of the mirror and get proud of what we have done, or think about how we could do more. The rich young ruler could not take his eyes off his own wealth to come to know the "owner" of it all. He may never have come to understand that he was only a manager for what God had allowed him to accumulate.

So if John's baptism could succeed in getting us to repent, i.e. turn around, turn from self, maybe, just maybe we would turn toward God with a desire to absorb truth from God. When we do that we are open to what John has to say, "Here is the Son of God!" When we come to Jesus, we will be open to His love. Our ears will be open to listen and hear His words of hope and life. If someone wants to find Jesus, they must first put down the mirror.

Gift of Life

It seems so incredible that the more we try to do good the more it becomes apparent that we can't sustain a perfect score card. Only one person ever lived with a totally perfect record. That person lived life in such a way that God was pleased with everything He did. When the day was done, the perfection on His record made His life so valuable that God allowed His (Jesus') death to pay for our sin.

So Jesus' sacrificial death pays for our sin because He died the death of a sinner while He was perfect. Yes, He died. Another incredible thing that happened was that He didn't remain dead!! He came back to life!! This proves He is the Son and exact representative of God. It also proves that what He talked about is the truth and He is totally worthy of our complete trust.

Jesus says that we should focus more on our connection with Him than trying to do the right things. By focusing on Him, He will guide us to do the right things. So don't sweat trying to live right, just keep trying to connect with Jesus.

This connection is real, it is a gift, undeserved yet available to anyone of every race, sex, social status, financial standing, education level and legal record. It is free to all.

Here is the rub; in order to get in on this deal we must put down our own life and let Jesus pick it up. We do this by just talking to Him and believe that He is listening. He is life giving.

Real Faith

Immediately following a discussion about the timing of the end of time, Jesus tells three stories about the church in Matthew 25.

1. The first story is about 10 virgins that are waiting for the bridegroom. They all had oil lamps for light. Five had enough oil to last through the unexpected delay. The other five begged for oil from the first five when the signs of the bridegroom's arrival were clear. The second five were denied the needed oil from the first five.

The message is that the oil, (Holy Spirit), cannot be gained from another person. It is personally obtained. You cannot have mine and I cannot have yours.

2. The second story is about three individuals that were given talents from the King to use while the King is away. One gets five, one gets two and the third gets one. The first puts his talent to use and gains five more, the second does the same and earns two more. The third hides the talent entrusted to him and has nothing more to show the King upon His return.

It appears that Jesus uses some tell-tale wording in his story about the third individual. He talks about the King's reputation rather than a personal relationship with Him.

The postulation seems to be that a personal relationship with the King drives us to risk putting His resources to work.

3. The third story is about a time when all humanity comes before the King and He separates them into groups. One group is commended for giving food, drink, clothing and visits to the King. Upon their surprised inquiry of when this might have happened, the King replies that whenever they did it for the least of all individuals, they did it as if to the King Himself. The people in this group were extended an invitation into the kingdom of life.

Another group gets the exact opposite report. They withheld food, drink, clothing and visits to the King. They reply in surprise as the first group did, asking when they would ever have been so rude to the King. His reply is that when they withheld from even the least of all people in need, they withheld from Him. These were turned away into eternal punishment.

Those who were the righteous were the ones who naturally gave what they had to those in need. Those who did not give were the ones who turned out to be the unrighteous.

A careful read of these three stories show us that we are expected to be active in our faith. We are to focus on being full of God, (oil), we are expected to put our talents to use so as to mature, (earn more), and it turns out that if we are those that don't help the needy, we are the unrighteous. Like James said in chapter 2, verse 26, "As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead."

Lift up your head.

Last week I read something about the Apostle Paul that struck a cord in my spirit. Here is the idea: When Paul was being troubled by the Jewish leadership of his day, God told Paul not to be troubled, and that He, (God) was going to get Paul to Rome. In the following days, weeks and years, Paul went through some very incredible events. He stood trial before Felix, Festus and Agrippa; they were men of Roman rulership. He was not afraid; he was going to Rome. After standing trial before King Agrippa, he was sent off to Rome under a Roman guard. On the trip to Rome, there was some tremendous storms. Paul was not afraid, God told him that he was going to Rome. One of the storms got so bad that some of the officers were talking about killing all of the prisoners so that they couldn't escape. Paul was not alarmed, he was going to Rome. Before that storm was over the ship they were on busted apart but Paul was not alarmed, he was going to Rome. The island that they were all able to reach safely had some kind natives that built a fire for the crew and prisoners. While Paul was putting some wood on the fire and viper came out of the wood and attached itself to Paul, he shook it off as if it were a harmless insect. He was not afraid, it was a fact that he was going to Rome.

Now for you and me who are trusting God to forgive us our sins because we believe that Jesus paid the price for our offenses against God; we are told in Ephesians chapter two that we are, "seated with Christ in the heavenlies." When I look around me, it doesn't look like heaven to me. But then I realize that God has put in a reservation with our name on it. So like Paul we know that the path before us may take some turns, some up and downs, but in the end we know where we are headed.

As Paul kept his focus on Rome, keep your focus on home. Whatever trouble gets in your path, endure, keep the faith, you know where you are going.

Thoughts on the Human Spirit

One of the greatest things about having God “in your life” is the fact that the person of God the Holy Spirit takes up residence in you. His address becomes the same as that of your spirit.

I suppose there are many things about our spirit that we don’t comprehend. One thing that sticks out to me about our spirit is that we place it last on the list of importance between spirit, soul and body. Whenever someone mentions the three, they list them in this sequence; body, soul and spirit. It is the last part of us that we think of.

Don’t we usually think about our body first when we are thinking about our person? God says that the most important part of us is our spirit. I believe we need to quit putting our spirit down and encourage it to grow. 

Our body won’t last as long as our spirit. When our time comes and we leave this life and move on to the next, what part of us will move on? It won’t be our body.  It will be our spirit. Our spirit and our soul is the real us. We will get a new body, but it will not be like this one at all. We should take care of this body, but don’t place it higher in importance than the real us.

Our spirit is our personal connection to God. God is Spirit. The Holy Spirit is one of the three persons of God. He is the one that comes to live in us when we accept God’s offer to apply the payment that Jesus made to our own account.

The thing about Him coming to reside with our spirit in us is just incredible. We can now link up with His power to live how we should. We can now rest in the knowledge that God in us, the Holy Spirit will counsel us, reminding us of the right way to live and warning us of danger in the wrong way we live.

Love is as Love does.

In 1 John 4, [vs.7] we are told to love each other. As John talks of God being love, he wrote of agape; the unconditional, giving love. This love can be so very difficult. By nature, it continues on its giving course no matter what the recipient of the love does. If the one that is on the receiving end turns away from the giver, the loves continues in force. The thing is, is that there is nothing that can deter agape love.

Thinking of this kind of “undeterable” love it might remind one of Jesus' words in the sermon on the mount in Matthew, chapter 5, If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. [Matthew 5:39 (NIV)] If that seems outlandish and undoable to anyone, it may well be that that person does not understand agape.

With that in mind, I have been wondering: is this love is beyond the ability of any human? Is it something that only God is capable of?

If that is so, how then can we follow the directive to love each other? The answer is that it is only as we let God live in us that we can love as God does. If we can become a tool in the Master’s hand, a soldier in the arm of the King of Kings, an ambassador for The Great Sovereign, then we can be a channel of the Agape Love that comes from His heart.

It is a giant step to let God live in us, yet it is a simple thing. God as made it simple. Religion makes it difficult. I desire to make it simple.

I think the purpose of Jesus' sacrificial death was to make it simple. He was without sin, yet became sin as He suffered the effect of sin, thus He turned away the wrath of God. As we agree with God that we need Jesus' sacrifice applied to our personal account, we stand forgiven. As our sin is cleaned off our account by Jesus' sacrifice, our being is then opened up for God to live in us. As God lives in us by His Spirit, He shares His abilities with us, and we are thus empowered to love as He does.

People may think that you and I are great people because they see how we love others. They may be incapable of understanding the reality; that it is God who is loving them through us. They might be incapable until that truth becomes a reality in their own life. One way to help them make the connection to God’s Agape Love is to build a relationship with them. After building that relationship with them, you can lead them to another relationship; a friendship with Jesus Christ.