Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Forgiveness: Part 4- God forgave us!!!

       Having looked at God's holiness and our sinfulness (read the last blog post if you haven't read that one yet) we realized how wretched and terrible our sin must look before a Holy God.  The absolutely amazing thing about it is that despite how wretched and terrible our sin is before Holy God, God desires to forgive us!  Scripture makes clear that the penalty, the punishment for our sin, is death.  Romans 6:23, "For the wages of sin is death."  That penalty had to be paid.  It had to be dealt with if we were to be forgiven.  It was, in God coming in the flesh in the person of Jesus Christ, living a perfect live, and than taking the punishment that we deserved, dying on the cross in our place.  That was what was necessary for the forgiveness of our sins, and that is exactly what God did!  The one who was perfect, the one who created everything and the one whom everything was created for, took your place, took the punishment you deserved, so that you could be forgiven.  THAT'S INCREDIBLE!  If you have heard this a billion times, I hope it still amazes you that God took the punishment you deserved so that you could be forgiven!  He did it to show off His incredible love!  He did not forgive you because you deserve it, or you earned it, or because you can pay Him back some day.  You can't, you didn't deserve it, and you can't earn it.  God forgave you, because He loves you!  THAT IS INCREDIBLE!!!
      It is out of God's incredible forgiveness that we ought to forgive others.  It should seem ludicrous to us that we can accept and receive God's forgiveness, but be unwilling to forgive someone else.  If we truly grasp our sinfulness, and God's holiness, we will understand how much we have been forgiven.  When we understand how much we have been forgiven, we quickly realize that we will never even come close to having to forgive others as much as we have been forgiven.
       You have likely experienced some deep scars, wounds, and pain at the hands of others.  I don't know what your story is, and if you shared it with me my heart would break with yours.  I want to say this with as much sympathy, love, and compassion as I possible can, no matter what you have experienced, the offenses committed against you do not come close to the offenses you have committed against God, and GOD forgave you!  If Holy God, the one who created you and sustains you, can forgive you ALL of your numerous sins and offenses that you have committed against Him, you and I need to forgive others!  Grasping God's incredible forgiveness for us, frees us to offer that same forgiveness to anyone, and everyone!  Failure and refusal to forgive others means that we have not understood the Gospel message.  It means that we have not grasped how Amazing God's grace, love, and forgiveness is!  When we get it, we give it!  God forgave us, so we forgive others!

Monday, March 12, 2012

Forgiveness: Part 3- God's Holiness and our sinfulness.

       Our ability to forgive others is intricately tied to our understanding of God's holiness and our sinfulness.  The discussion of God's holiness, and our sinfulness, have filled up countless numbers of books and here we can only begin to scratch the surface of these incredibly important topics.  In my own journey with forgiveness coming to a better understanding of God's holiness and my sinfulness was a vital part of reaching the place of forgiveness.
       God is Holy.  That means God is totally and completely separate and set-apart.
Isaiah 46:5, "To whom will you compare me or count me equal?  To whom will you liken me that we may be compared"
Isaiah 46:9, "I am God, and there is no other.  I am God, and there is none like me."
Isaiah 40:18, "To whom, then, will you compare God?  What image will you compare him to?"
Isaiah 40:25, "To whom will you compare me?  Or who is my equal? says the Holy One."
      I could point to many other passages to demonstrate God's holiness.  God is totally and completely Holy.  God has no beginning or ending.  God is all-powerful, all knowing, all present.  Staying within His character, God is free and able to do whatever He desires.  He does not have to answer to anyone, or defend Himself before anyone.  Revelation 4 presents an incredible picture of God's throne room and what is taking place at this very moment as you read this.
       Revelation 4:3-11, "And the one who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian.  A rainbow, resembling an emerald, encircles the throne.  Surrounding the throne were twenty-four other thrones, and seated on them were twenty-four elders.  They were dressed in white and had crowns of gold on their heads.  From the throne came flashes of lightning, rumblings and peals of thunder.  Before the throne, seven lamps were blazing.  These are the seven spirits of God.  Also before the throne there was what looked like a sea of glass, clear as crystal.  In the center, around the throne, were four living creatures, and they were covered with eyes, in front and in back.  The first living creature was like a lion, the second was like an ox, the third had a face like a man, the fourth was like a flying eagle.  Each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around, even under his wings.  Day and night they never stop saying:  'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come.'  Whenever the living creatures give glory, honor and thanks to him who sits on the throne and who lives for ever and ever.  They lay their crowns before the throne and say, 'You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things and by your will they were created and have their being.'"  What an incredible picture of the throne room of God, and what is taking place right now.  It is that God who is constantly being praised, who created all, and whose will is fully carried out, who you and I offend and sin against.
      We need to remind ourselves of God's holiness time and time again, because as we see God's holiness we begin to come to grips with the magnitude of our sin.  Every-time you and I sin, it is Holy God that we are sinning against.  The one who created us, and sustains us, is the one that we are sinning against.  Every time we sin we are making the choice to put our selfish desires above Holy God, and that is crazy to think about based on the picture of God's throne room we just looked at.  That is the God that we sin against.  A God who hates sin, and rightfully has, and will continue to pour out his wrath against sinners.  To make matters even more stunning listen to what Isaiah 64:6 states, "All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags."  In the presence of Holy God our righteous acts, the good deeds we do, are like filthy rags.  The literal translation of filthy rags in the Hebrew is menstrual cloth.  Grossed out by that?  Good!  Because even the good things we do in the sight of Holy God are like a menstrual cloth.  If that is how our goodness appears before God, think about what our sin must look like before Holy God.
       God is Holy.  We are sinful.  So how does all of this connect with forgiveness?  Until we understand who it is we have sinned against, and offended, it will be very difficult to forgive those who have sinned against and offended us.  However, once we grasp God's holiness, our sinfulness, and astonishingly God's forgiveness and love, we begin to move to a place where we can offer forgiveness to anyone for anything.  For the next part of this series we will look at God's grace and forgiveness offered to you and me, and by understanding that, how we will be able to forgive others!

Monday, March 5, 2012

Forgiveness: Part 2- My journey

       Forgiveness is really, really, hard, and as I discussed in my last post it is an area where many, many, followers of Jesus struggle.  However, Scripture is crystal clear that if we refuse to forgive others, we will not receive God's forgiveness.  It was those passages in Scripture (Matthew 6:14-15, Matthew 18:35, Mark 11:25, and others) that drove me to my need to pursue forgiveness.  In order to respect the privacy of the individual I cannot give details about the specific events that took place that led for my desperate need to seek forgiveness.  Suffice it to say that someone close to me was deeply wounded and violated, because of the actions of another individual who I knew, although not well.  It was years after the incident in which I found out about what happened.  My initial response was one of hatred and rage, truly desiring the death of the individual.  Those feelings never went away, even as time went on.  Granted the feelings of hatred and rage were not as frequent as time went on,  however anytime something happened that brought this individual to mind, hatred and rage, instantly boiled up anew in my mind and heart.
       It was in reading passages of Scripture about the necessity of Jesus followers to forgive others that convicted me and made me realize that I needed to begin to move in the direction of forgiveness.  It was not instantaneous, and at times when I thought I had reached the place of forgiveness, something would happen that made it clear that I had not yet reached forgiveness.  During this time in my life God taught me some incredible truths about what forgiveness is, and how we as Jesus followers can go about forgiving others, even those who have done the unthinkable and hurt you in ways you could have never imagined.  So where do we begin?  By looking at the God of the universe and what our sin must look like in His eyes.  It is only by understanding the Gospel message, that we can understand and move towards the place of true forgiveness!  Part 3 of this series will be looking at the holiness of God, and how our sin looks in the presences of Holy God.