Monthly Archives: May 2014

IS GOD’S FORGIVENESS CONDITIONAL?

30 Friday May 2014

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Did you ever wonder what the part in the Lord’s Prayer that says “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us” means?  I had always filed that one under “Theological Mysteries Too Deep for Me to Understand.”  Doesn’t God assure us ALL of our sins are forgiven because of Jesus’ death on the cross?  This seems to imply that He will only forgive as I forgive and I’m human.  If someone has done something really awful to me and I’m struggling to forgive them, does that mean God will not forgive some of my sins?

 I wasn’t going to take any chances with this and decided that forgiveness was to be my way of life.  I have some pretty bad sin in my life – bad.  I have spent the majority of my life serving myself at great cost to others.  But I claimed God’s promise that He forgives me for everything I’ve done as long as I am sincerely sorry and turn away from those things.  There is a lot of sin that a just, righteous God had to wipe from this sinner’s slate, and if He’s willing to do that for me, I will forgive whatever somebody has done to me.  Some wrongs are tougher than others and I often find myself struggling to stay at the proper level of forgiveness, but rather than dwell on what someone has done, I shift my focus to their need for God, remembering the time in my life when sin defined my life.  I concentrate on praying for them and for me.  Focusing on forgiveness and prayer keeps my thoughts away from what they have done.  God’s gift to me is a forgiving heart, which I feel very blessed to have.  Even with that, I have found it to be consistently and profoundly true that forgiveness may not do anything for the other person but it has set me free: so much less to fret about and stew over.

 So, despite not fully understanding what this part of the Lord’s Prayer means, I had it covered by my decision to just forgive.  Then a few weeks ago I was listening to Alistair Begg on the radio as he explained this passage.  Seems I’ve been taking the line too literally – no surprise there.  According to Pastor Begg, as sincere followers of Christ, our goal must be to forgive everyone of everything (forgive us as we forgive others) because that’s how God forgives those who accept His gift of salvation.  If we’re unable to do that, then we haven’t fully realized how detestable sin is to God; we haven’t acknowledged how abhorrent our sin is to Him, nor how great His gift of forgiveness is.  Once we fully understand the magnitude of God’s grace and mercy we will be able to forgive seventy times seven times.  It’s something we will work on as long as we walk on the earth, but it is to be our goal. To choose not to forgive someone and stick to that decision is a clear indicator that we haven’t grasped how wretched we are without Jesus.

 Psalm 51: 3, 4 – “ For I acknowledge my transgressions, And my sin is always before me. Against You, You only, have I sinned,”

 As humans we rate sin – murder is worse than a lie, lying is worse than stealing my pen from work, stealing my pen from work is worse than using God’s name in vain.  But whatever you consider the smallest sin separates you from God.  We must look at sin from God’s viewpoint, not our own.  In His eyes, no matter how “small” the sin, the object of His great love – YOU – are separated from Him.  That grieves God.

 Mark 5:34: “And He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well.  Go in peace, and be healed of your affliction.”

 Grace is relatively easy to understand intellectually.  Jesus paid our debt and God no longer holds us accountable for any of our sins – not a single one.  In my mind I understand that.  But truly comprehending how great His mercy is is extremely difficult.  If I have spent my entire life repeatedly committing the sin I think is the absolute worst one, but right before I die I sincerely accept Jesus as my Savior, God forgives me. He said He would and I expect Him to do that.  And He expects me to forgive everyone of everything without keeping record of the offenses.  Too much to ask from a human being?  Yep.  But I can do it because His Spirit dwells in me and I call on His power to get me to the place He expects me to be.  I can’t just consider forgiveness; I can’t reason through a situation to determine if I will or won’t forgive; I certainly can’t make a decision about forgiving someone based on worldly rationale because the world will tell me I certainly do not have to forgive everyone of everything all the time.  From a worldly perspective I cannot accept that someone like Jeffrey Dahmer could be forgiven.  But God clearly tells me otherwise.  The world rails at the thought of a child molester being forgiven.  But God will forgive anyone that is clothed in Jesus’ righteousness.  That’s the magnitude of His forgiveness that I have to understand.  And if I cannot understand it, I simply must accept it and trust Him in that.

 As a Christian I am held to a very high standard.  That standard is not another human being – my standard is Jesus.  God’s work in me is conforming me to His image, not to the image of the “goodest” person I know.   When forgiveness is hard, I remind myself that, had I done something as horrible as Mr. Dahmer, the moment I accepted Christ’s death as payment for my sins, I would have been forgiven.  That’s God’s promise.  Learning to forgive is part of our sanctification – part of becoming more like Christ.  We must constantly be working on it.  If there’s someone you haven’t forgiven because you feel justified that what they did was so bad you need not forgive them; perhaps someone keeps hurting you time and time again and you have stopped even considering the need to forgive them, you can know you haven’t fully grasped how abhorrent your sin is and how great God’s forgiveness is.

 Luke 11:3, 4 – “Give us day by day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, For we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us.”

 God’s forgiveness is not conditional.  This statement in our Lord’s Prayer is a reminder of what God has set as our goal.  If there are still people in our lives we are struggling to forgive, we can know we haven’t fully grasped the magnitude of what God has done for us.  We haven’t fully realized how wretched we are without Christ.

TIME TO DEAL WITH MY PRIDE

04 Sunday May 2014

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 Recently God made it clear to me that it’s time to deal with my pride. I knew I could no longer excuse or dismiss the way I behave when pride rears its ugly head in my life. It was time to let go of it and allow God’s Spirit to determine my response instead of my emotions. I’ve been troubled with this for some time, unable to enjoy God’s peace as I continue in my disobedience.

 Here is some of what C.S. Lewis says about pride in his book, Mere Christianity, Chapter 8 titled The Great Sin: 

            “There is no fault … which we are more unconscious of in ourselves. And the more we have it ourselves, the more we dislike it in others.”

             “…the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind.”

            “Other vices may sometimes bring people together: you may find good fellowship and jokes and friendliness among drunken people or unchaste people. But pride always means enmity – it is enmity. And not only enmity between man and man, but enmity to God.”

            “If you think you are not conceited, it means you are very conceited indeed.” (I love that one!!)

            “Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. We say that people are proud of being rich, or clever, or good-looking, but they are not. They are proud of being richer, or cleverer, or better-looking than others.”

 I went back to college to get my bachelor’s degree because “everyone” around me had one. Once I had that, I began noticing all the people who had master’s degrees. So I got one. Then, as I was working in my field, I noticed how many people had a specialized certification so I got that. Then I got a job where the majority of people had PhD’s. I made phone calls, eager to begin my work earning that degree. But I was tired – tired of attaining one level of education only to yearn for the next. Before I earned them, I wanted them desperately. But as soon as I had that piece of paper in hand, their value diminished: after all, I didn’t earn them from a top-ranked college. I didn’t become the confident person I thought I would become because I had them. When I committed my life to Christ, He showed me that His plan for me has never been a worldly one – the degrees were part of MY plan. But pride did provide me with a use for those worldly achievements: to try to convince people I’m “cleverer…than others!”

 My go-to pride behavior is spewing my “wisdom” for whoever is within earshot. I say whatever pops into my head to show how much I know, to indicate the things I have or my position in life, to insure someone understands I am not wrong or “less smart” than they are. When I see a chance around people I’m comfortable with to expound on whatever topic has come up, my “wisdom” comes gushing out. I say things without considering the effect my words have on others. It’s embarrassing to put that on paper and my pride tells me I don’t have to talk about it; better to keep this to myself so others won’t look down on me or know my secret – as if they’re not already aware of it! I discussed thoughts on pride in another blog, but this aspect of it was one of those things in my life that I hadn’t yet identified as disobedience.

 I can’t tell you how many times I’ve embarrassed myself as I allowed pride to determine my behavior. But that’s not the worse consequence – I’ve hurt people I love. I’ve struck at people at their most vulnerable spots, wanting them to feel small on purpose. Lewis is absolutely right when he says “Pride leads to every other vice…” God has made it clear how pride is bringing sin into my life and I know I must hand it over to Him now.

2 Corinthians 12:9 – And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”   

 I’ve deleted these last two paragraphs numerous times thinking there’s another way I can talk about this without divulging my weakness. But I’ll press on – as I become more obedient, it is a clear testimony of the Holy Spirit’s work in me – I can’t do this on my own!

 I used to ease my conscience about my pride by telling myself I’m just insecure. But isn’t a big part of insecurity just constantly reminding myself of the areas in my life where I feel I don’t measure up? Labeling pride insecurity garnered sympathy and self-pity. I didn’t have to admit my behaviors were due to pride; I was simply compensating – behaving in a way that eased my suffering – never mind I caused others to suffer! My goal wasn’t to simply overcome insecurity; my goal was to be at the top, nothing less satisfied the true source of my problem.

 The more mature we are in our Christian life, the more we abhor sin. There was a time in my life when I didn’t give a second thought to these things. If I said something hurtful to someone I told myself I was only trying to help them. Chasing after college degrees was only my ambition and a desire to be successful. Now when I allow my pride to determine my behaviors, I am deeply troubled. There were two situations in the past month where I didn’t even try to stop myself from speaking even though I knew exactly what was going on before I opened my mouth. After hours of embarrassment and contemplating painful apologies, I am thankful that God allowed me to see my sin so clearly. I’m thankful He gave me the heart and courage to apologize.

Romans 7:15 – “For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.”

I’m not naïve enough to think I won’t continue to give in to my pride. But I am being very intentional about how I respond when I feel the swell of pride come over me. I have been in a number of situations already where I felt it full-force and wanted so badly to say something that would puff myself up. But I refrained and the feeling from obeying God instead of responding to my emotions brings so much peace. And it has helped me advance my relationship with one particular person so that I am better able to show God’s love.

 There are so many behaviors that we don’t often attribute to pride: an unwillingness to admit when we’re wrong; refusal to apologize; self-pity; arrogance; refusal to acknowledge how your behaviors hurt others; insisting that everything be done your way; refusal to listen to someone else’s ideas; the need to control situations and the people around you; focusing on others’ faults; reluctance or refusal to accept or even listen to constructive criticism; defensiveness; anger; responding by giving others the silent treatment. Do you feel the need to say whatever’s on your mind, giving no thought to the consequences of your words or tone of voice? Look at your behaviors and determine whether or not pride is at the root of it and begin praying for the strength to conquer it. You will need the Holy Spirit – there’s no hope of conquering this one without Him!

 While pride damages our relationships with other people, the greatest harm is that it keeps us from God. Lewis reminds us that pride IS enmity (hostility) to God by man. Are you too proud to submit to His authority? Too proud to understand His plans are better than yours? Too proud to admit He operates in ways that we are unable to understand? Too proud to accept that God can save even the worst sinner you can imagine? Too proud to admit you are as bad as the worst sinner you can imagine? Are you too proud to forgive everyone who has ever hurt you or your family? Are you too proud to submit to Christian leaders God has placed in your life? Are you too proud to reject Christian leaders who don’t adhere to Christian doctrine? Are you too proud to admit that something in your life is not in keeping with God’s Truth? Pride demands that we be number one, the “main event”, even putting ourselves above God and His commands.

 C.S. Lewis points out that pride changed Lucifer from an angel to Satan.  He says it is “the complete anti-God state of mind.”

Job 20:6-7 – “Though the pride of the godless person reaches to the heavens and his head touches the clouds, he will perish forever…”