Saltshakers
Matthew 5:13a : “you are the salt of the earth”
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Monday, April 06, 2009, 11:34 PM
forgiveness
This is gonna be pretty long. but it's a good read.. esp for easter:)Read on!
Elisabeth Elliot: "You are loved with an everlasting love." That's what the Bible says, "and underneath are the everlasting arms." This is your friend Elisabeth Elliot, talking with you today about one of the primary evidences of that everlasting love--"Forgiveness."
Forgiveness. We read in the Scriptures that God did not send His Son, Jesus, into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved (John 3:17). That was why God sent Jesus. Have you thought about it, in that light? God wants to forgive you. He is not a frightening Patriarch up there in the sky, scrutinizing you to find out where you're sinning.
He knows--of course. Nothing is hidden from God; He knows where we're sinning. But His object is to bring us to repentance in order that He may forgive us. And all it takes is repentance, on our part. It took a great deal more than that on God's part. It took His life, His blood, His death on the cross.
So the central symbol of our faith, that cross, is a great crossroads. It's there that sinners are forgiven. It's there that the sacrifice for sin was made once for all.
Most of you know what Protestants call "The Lord's Prayer" and what Catholics would call the "Our Father." And what are the words in there? Forgive us our trespasses or our debts, as we forgive our, as we forgive our debtors or as we forgive those who trespass against us (Matt. 6:12).
Forgiveness is a grace that has to be offered to sinners--to people who trespass against us, to those who really have offended and hurt us, to those who have abused us. If God forgave us the way we forgive those who trespass against us, sometimes, we'd all be in big trouble, wouldn't we? Because we don't necessarily forgive those people completely, freely and forever. Sometimes we don't forgive them at all. Is that the way you expect God to forgive you? "Forgive us, as we forgive those."
Have you been abused in some way, as a child, as a wife, as an employee? "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who have abused us." Have you been lied about? "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who have lied about us." Misrepresented, have you been misrepresented? "As we forgive those." Has someone destroyed your reputation in an irreparable way? What is your responsibility to that person? Well, if you want God to forgive you, He will forgive you as you forgive him who destroyed your reputation.
"As we forgive those who have cheated us. As we forgive those who have betrayed us." Has Jesus been through that? We know that He has. "As we forgive those who have turned against us." What was Jesus' prayer on the cross? "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34).
Now in order to forgive others, you and I must know that we have been forgiven, that we have received grace, that we have had our sins canceled on the cross. How can we forgive someone else if we have not received the grace of God that forgives us? But the deeper our recognition of our own need of that grace--the worse our sins appear to us to be, the more we marvel at the amazing grace of God and the more humbly we accept the grace that He gives to us--the more ready we will be to offer to someone else the grace of forgiveness, someone who has abused or cheated or betrayed or lied about us. We must receive God's grace for ourselves first.
And He's ready to offer it. He stands with arms wide open, ready to receive us.
I've had several letters just in the past couple of weeks from very distressed people who said that they thought they were saved, they had received Jesus as their Savior as a child, but they're not really sure whether He has ever forgiven them. And I wrote back to say, "I really don't think that a person who is not a Christian would really be worried very much about it. But if there's any doubt in your mind, just come to the Lord and say, 'Lord, I don't know whether it was real back then, but right now I want to make sure that I open my heart to You. So Lord, here I am, all of me for You forever. Take me.'" God hears that prayer. He forgives you.
"What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Nothing but the blood of Jesus."
A psychiatrist friend of mine said that modern psychiatry--secular psychiatry--spends a lot of time dealing with guilt feelings. But he said, "We Christians know that guilt feelings are usually related to real guilt, and there's only one remedy for that--the blood of Jesus, the blood of Jesus, the blood of Jesus."
Now, your refusal to forgive that one who has offended you may be due to your refusal to believe that God has forgiven you. Maybe you don't even believe that God can forgive you. Maybe you're like the woman who came to my house who felt that she had committed an unpardonable sin, because since she became a Christian she has had an abortion. She was demolished by the sense of guilt that lay upon her.
God forgives the sins that we confess to Him. "He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins" (1 John 1:9). The Bible says, Romans 8:1 says, "there is no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit."
Do you really believe that His blood can cover it all? It may be that recollections of the past are hindering you, but you must reject them; worries are tormenting you, put them away. Your sins, your faults, just sometimes rise up like ghosts and specters and build a barrier. But no past faults can separate a loving heart from God.
St. Francis de Sales said, "Do not scrutinize so closely whether you are doing much or little, ill or well, so long as what you do is not sinful, and that you are heartily seeking to do everything for God. Try as far as you can to do everything well, but when it is done, do not think about it; try rather to think of what is to be done next. Go on simply in the Lord's way, and do not torment yourself. We ought to hate our faults, but with a quiet, calm hatred, not pettishly and anxiously."
That gave me pause when I came across that in St. Francis de Sales. I had never thought of hating anything quietly and calmly. But, I do think it's possible before God to hate our faults, but with a quiet, calm hatred, not pettishly and anxiously, and not with pride that says, "Imagine me doing a thing like that!" I know that I'm capable of any sin in the book. It's only the grace of God that keeps me from any of them.
To go on with St. Francis de Sales' quotation, "We must learn to look patiently at them [our faults], and win through them the grace of self-abnegation and humility. Be constant and courageous, and rejoice that He has given you the will to be wholly His."
The full price has been paid, dear friends. If there's anybody listening to me today who wonders whether or not that decision made years ago was genuine, then I would say, "Don't waste another minute. Just come to God in the simplicity of your faith and tell Him that He is all your hope and peace. He is all your righteousness. You don't have anything else."
And in all sincerity and honesty before Him, give Him your life. Give Him your sins. And He casts those sins--the Bible tells us--into the depths of the sea, and they are never remembered again.
That's the way God forgives you and His grace is great enough to enable you to forgive your enemy that way, too--not just to forgive him, but to love him. Jesus goes much further than just forgiveness. He says, "You must love your enemies" (Matt. 5:44). And if we actually do this, then we Christians will be a living mystery--people whose lives make no sense apart from God.
Who in his right mind would love an enemy--nobody, but the person with God's love in his heart.
Lisa Barry: Someone once said that forgiveness doesn't mean that we've forgotten the event that caused us the pain, but that we've given up the right to get even with that person. The twang of pain may still hit from time to time. We can't control that. But we can control what we do or don't do about it.