Skip to main content

Being Like The Most High

            Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. (Colossian 3:13)

This is one of the terrible, frustrating things about God’s Word: it doesn’t use us as the standard. We were created in the image of God, and our sins are our attempt to be “like the Most High,” but when God tells us what being like Him actually requires, the fun is over.

And when the Bible reveals the cost God paid to forgive us, it’s even worse. Are we supposed to lay down our lives to forgive someone? It doesn’t often go that far literally, but in a figurative or spiritual sense, it does. To forgive requires that we tell ourselves “No!” when we ruminate on the wrong done and when we want to punish the person who did us wrong. What makes it even harder is when the person we won’t forgive didn’t even do something to us.

In order to forgive, no matter who or for what, we have to die to our hatred, our desire for revenge, and our grievance. Forgiveness isn’t about what the person did so much as it is about our response to them. It isn’t pretending that the person didn’t do anything, or freeing them of any responsibility for what they did. It’s about not letting what they did control what you do. It’s about not holding on to your hatred. Both can feel like we’re dying.

And the need to forgive can sneak  up on us. As I typed the paragraph above, a couple of sources of irritation came to mind, both connected to the same people, and both involving the same crime. My church discontinued prayer meetings until next fall. It also discontinued the coffee service until the fall. Minor things. Maybe. And I can sort of understand why they did both, but the whole “the whole world stops because it’s summer” thing irritates me. They don’t discontinue church services, or communion and they don’t tell us “We have enough money, don’t give anything again until Fall.” I’m not saying I’m being rational, but it’s the sort of thing we need to forgive.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Saved?

  I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” (John 10:28-30) “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, “I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ ” (Matthew 7:21-23) Not at all! Let God be true, and every human being a liar. As it is written: “So that you may be proved right when you speak and prevail when you judge.” (Romans 3:4)   What conclusion do you draw when someone who was raised in a Christian family and church, perhaps even playing a significant role in a chur...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Virgin?

           Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. (Isaiah 7:14)           This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. (Matthew 1:18)           But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.”            “How will this be,” Mary asked the...
Post a Comment
Read more

Meditations of the Heart

  May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalm19:14)           As I started writing this post, I noted that the meditations of my heart are all over the mental landscape, from a hub where eight superhighways come together to a lunar or nuclear landscape. Do you see my error? The moment I read the word meditation , I think about thoughts. But what’s described here is the meditations of our hearts ; our wills.           While the meditations of our minds may be all over the place, the meditations of our wills tend to be a little more stable by the time we are adults. We no longer tend to want to pursue the ten separate careers we did in any given day as children. Part of this is humble acceptance of reality. We come to understand that we can’t do it all. I think another part of it is disappointmen...
Post a Comment
Read more