June 9
"Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father who is in heaven will also forgive you your transgressions." Mark 11:25
LET IT GO!
Resentment always hurts you more than it does the person you resent. While your offender has probably forgotten the offense and gone on with life, you continue to stew in your pain, perpetuating the past.
Listen: those who hurt you in the past cannot continue to hurt you now unless you hold on to the pain through resentment. Your past is past! Nothing will change it. You are only hurting yourself with your bitterness.
For your own sake, learn from it, and then let it go.-- Rick Warren from The Purpose Driven Life
Today's message of forgiveness is always a timely one, for it seems life on this fallen planet is overwhelmed with offenses. Whether the ultimate offense of robbing one of freedom and/or life, as is commonly done in some parts of the world where righteousness is turned inside out and zealots think they do their god a favor by abusing men of a different persuasion or whether the "little foxes that spoil the vine,” (Song of Solomon 2:15) of day-to-day relationships, people of faith in Christ are called upon to forgive much.
And we sometimes wonder why He requires so much of us along that line. Why can't He be content with the seven times of forgiveness we've already meted out rather than the seventy times seven that protracts the demand He puts upon us to infinitude? Perhaps it is because we are destined for eternity and forgiveness unto eternity is the least He can require of us to equip us for that place where so much has already been forgiven.
Indeed, Jesus is our example, and He has already forgiven all. Everything He calls upon us to forgive, He has already forgiven. If we forgive our seventy times seven, He has already accomplished it and our part is simply to reflect Him. Have we the grace to extend such magnanimity on our own? No, we do not; so in order to forgive as He has forgiven, we must first appropriate His love--His love that "covers a multitude of sins," (I Peter 4:8).
In other words, of ourselves, there is no good thing within us. We can accomplish nothing of value in time or for eternity, until we appropriate to ourselves all the gifts Jesus has given us. First, we take the gift of salvation, then we begin to appropriate the others--the love that cannot fail, (I Corinthians 13:8), the forgiveness that cleanses from all unrighteousness (I John i:9), the peace that passes understanding (Philippians 4:7) when confronted by those who disdain our good.
May each of us become more Christlike in all our endeavors and especially in the heart of who we are, for in so doing, we enable our small spot on the planet to become a microcosm of Heaven and a reflection of Heaven's King.
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