Smart Aleck Theological Questions

Wisdom from Marilynne Robinson’s masterpiece, Gilead, through the voice of the Reverend John Ames:

Nine-tenths of the time when some smart aleck starts in on theological questions he’s only trying to put me in a false position, and I’m just too old to see the joke in it anymore. [p. 152]

Clearly there is a difference between smart aleck theological questions and genuine theological questions.

If you’re the one being asked, learn to spot the difference between the two and then respond with the necessary sarcasm or seriousness.

And if you are the smart aleck, quit it. (Especially if you are a blogger or a blog commenter.)

 

“Son Of A..!”: Thoughts on Softening the Bible

Earlier this morn, in 1 Samuel 20:30, I came across King Saul calling his son, Jonathan, a “stupid, son of a bitch!” Not your average morning devotional reading, eh?

This got me thinking: How can this kind of language be in the Bible?

The Bible is full of tenderness and toughness and translators have been known to take the tough edges off a bit.

Well, actually it is not. I found it in the notes in my Bible. The translation I have been reading from lately is the NET Bible which has over 60,000 translation notes within it, and they translated Saul’s angry outburst toward his son: “You stupid traitor!” Yet in the notes they make the following admission:

A better English approximation of the sentiments expressed here by the Hebrew phrase would be “You stupid son of a bitch!” However, sensitivity to the various public formats in which the Bible is read aloud has led to a less startling English rendering which focuses on the semantic value of Saul’s utterance (i.e, the behavior of his own son Jonathan, which he viewed as both a personal and a political behavior [= "traitor"]). But this concession should not obscure the fact that Saul is full of bitterness and frustration. That he would address his son Jonathan with such language, not to mention his apparent readiness even to kill his own son over this friendship with David (v. 33), indicates something of the extreme depth of Saul’s jealousy and hatred of David.

So, the translators, of the NET Bible and many others, decided to soften the blow of the Hebrew to make it more sensitive to various listeners even though the Hebrew itself wasn’t nearly as sensitive. Now, I am sure they had good reasons for doing so, but I think it brings up an important point. We love to soften the hard edges of the Bible.

Now in no way am I trying to give everyone who wanted to have an excuse to cuss a biblical reason for doing so. Clearly Saul’s statement was the result of sinful anger. Nevertheless, the Bible is full of tenderness and toughness and translators have been known to take the tough edges off a bit.

Holiness is humble but it is not always nice.

For instance, in Philippians, Paul compares all of his religious accolades to “rubbish” or “dung” in comparison to knowing Christ. Yet in all probability he wasn’t just saying “rubbish” with a British accent over tea; instead, as the NET Bible puts it,

The word here translated “dung” was often used in Greek as a vulgar term for fecal matter. As such it would most likely have had a certain shock value for the readers.

Obviously, “dung” isn’t very shocking or vulgar. I could say that to my (almost) three-year-old and not blush. However, I can think of other words I could say that would be more alarming about fecal matter that I would not say in front of my three-year-old. That is what the Holy Spirit inspired apostle is after here.

I am not pretending to be a Bible translator. I am nothing of the sort and don’t even know the Greek or Hebrew alphabet. But I think there is a desire here by translators to temper the Bible a bit that carries over to the pulpit and to the daily lives of Christians.

We want to be able to read our Bible’s without being provoked with foul language. We want to hear sermons with the offensiveness drained out. We want to be good, nice Christian people that say nice Christian things. The problem is the original languages of our God-breathed book sometimes says “son of a bitch” and calls idolaters whores and even our Savior, Jesus, calls the Pharisees names.

Bible-reading, you can call it devotions, is meant to kick us in the gut sometimes and not just massage our nice-and-neat hyper-spiritual sensibilities. It is meant to awaken us to the reality of sin and the beauty of scandalous grace in Jesus.

This isn’t about cussing. This is about our sinful tendency to soften God’s word to us and his call to us.

I think there are a few things to take away from this:

1) The Bible isn’t a cutesy story full of butterflies and rainbows. It is the story of men and women who were created in God’s image being broken by sin and redeemed by the gracious plan of the Triune God. We should expect scandal and uncouthness in the Bible.

2) Preachers aren’t supposed to preach sermons to make you feel good and Christian books aren’t supposed to be written to entertain you or improve you. They should awaken you.

3) Godly communication is tough and tender. The way you communicate differs depending on who you are talking to, what the circumstances are, and what you are talking to them about. For instance, sarcasm can be a biblical means of communication when used in rebuke.

4) We, like translators, have a propensity to soften God’s word to us in the Bible. We naturally want to weaken the offensiveness of the cross, tone down the exclusivity and sufficiency of the work of Jesus, soften our Bible-translations, only experience encouraging encouragement and avoid encouraging rebuke, have devotions and listen to preaching that massages what we already know and doesn’t call us higher, etc.

This isn’t about cussing. This is about our sinful tendency to soften God’s word to us and his call to us. Jesus laughed and played with little children, wept with Lazarus’ family, and he also made a whip to drive out salesman in his house.

Let’s not soften the Bible and lets not repackage holiness into niceness. Holiness is humble but it is not always nice.

Mosaic Liberalism: Returning to Our Beginnings

Pulitzer Prize winning Novelist Marilynne Robinson:

“The law of Moses puts liberation theology to shame in its passionate loyalty to the poor.”[When I Was a Child I Read Books, Location 1479]

“At present, here in what is still sometimes called our Calvinist civilization, the controversies of liberalism and conservatism come down, as always, to economics…There is clearly a feeling abroad that God smiled on our beginnings, and that we should return to them as we can. If we really did attempt to return to them, we would find Moses as well as Christ, Calvin, and his legions of intellectual heirs. And we would find a recurrent, passionate insistence on bounty or liberality, mercy and liberality, on being kind and liberal, liberal and bountiful, and enjoying the great blessings God has promised to liberality to the poor.” [Ibid., Location 1227]

Yahweh’s prophet Moses:

⁷ “If among you, one of your brothers should become poor, in any of your towns within your land that theLord your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother,⁸ but you shall open your hand to him and lend him sufficient for his need, whatever it may be…¹⁰ You shall give to him freely, and your heart shall not be grudging when you give to him, because for this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake. ¹¹ For there will never cease to be poor in the land. Therefore I command you, ‘You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land.’” (Deut. 15:7-8, 10-11)

“You shall not oppress a stranger; you know the heart of a stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” (Exodus 23:9)

 

6 Reasons Not to Be Discouraged & Depressed Over Your Sins

William Bridge, a seventeenth century Puritan minister, and author of A Lifting Up for the Downcast, fills his book with ways to be encouraged when you are under discouragement or depression. In one particular chapter titled “A Lifting Up in the Case of Great Sins” he outlines several ways to be lifted up even after committing great sins.

One of the reasons he recommends for not being discouraged over your sins is that discouragement itself is a sin against the gospel. Countering the question, “Shouldn’t I be discouraged because of such and such a sin?” He answers, “No! for discouragement itself is a sin, another sin, a gospel sin.” (68). The biggest problem with discouragement is that it doubts the gospel. Depression over sin believes that sins power is greater than gospel power. Consequently, we must fight proneness toward discouragement and depression with all our might.

The biggest problem with discouragement is that it doubts the gospel. Depression over sin believes that sins power is greater than gospel power.

In the following I summarize and elaborate on some of Bridge’s reasons for Christians not to be depressed and discouraged over their besetting sins:

1. You will never be condemned for your sin because Christ was condemned for you. Since Christ was made sin for his saints, Bridge argues, “…sin shall not hurt them” (69). He quotes Luther, who wrote, “‘Christ is made sin-damning, our sin is sin damned: I confess, indeed…that I have sinned, but sin-damning is stronger than sin-damned, and Christ was made sin-damning for me’” (69).

2. You will never be forsaken by God for your sins even though you may lose a sense of the presence of God because of your sins. Your “sins may hide God’s face…but shall never turn God’s back” (70).  God’s covenant of mercy with his people is unalterable, and as a part of the people of God mercy is yours forever. You will be disciplined for sin, but never experience God’s wrath for your sin. The comforts of God’s presence may be felt as lost, but the privileges of the believer remain. “This sin of mine, indeed, it is a pest, and the plague of my soul, and a leprosy…[and] although I cannot come to the use of Him as I did before, yet I have right unto Jesus Christ now, as I had before” (73).

3. Your abundant sins are overruled by God’s superabundant grace. Paul, in Romans 11:32, says that God “shut up all to disobedience” in order to have mercy on all. Therefore “God never permits His people to fall into any sin but He intends to make that sin an inlet unto further grace and comfort to them” (71). Furthermore, “He never permits any of His people to fall into any sin, but He hath a design by that fall to break the back of that sin they do fall into” (72).

4. Your power for great sin is not as strong as God’s greater power to forgive. Bridge asks, “Is your sin as big as God, as big as Christ? Is Jesus Christ only a Mediator for small sins? Will you bring down the satisfaction of Christ, and the mercy of God, to your own model?” (74). David sinned greatly and confessed it in Psalm 25:11, and if David’s great sins can be forgiven so can yours.

Discouragement sees only God as Judge, while humility sees God as a just Judge and loving Father.

5. The commandment you have broken by sinning always has a promise attached to it. He states,

God has joined commandment and promise together; the promise and the commandment are born twins. There is never a commandment that you read of but has a promise annexed to it, a promise of assistance, a promise of acceptance, and a promise of reward. If you look upon the commandment itself without a promise, then you will despair; if you look upon the promise without the commandment, then you will presume: but look upon the promise and the commandment…together, then you will be humbled if you have sinned, but you will not be discouraged (83-84).

6. You should be humbled by your sins but not be depressed by them because God is a forgiving Father. The author continues,

God is not pleased with grief for grief, God is not pleased with sorrow for sorrow. The purpose of all our sorrow and grief is, to embitter our sin to us, to make us prize Jesus Christ, to wean us from the delights and pleasures of the creature, to reveal the deceitfulness and naughtiness of our own hearts (79).

The difference between humility over sin and depression over sin is the difference between a God-centered view of sin and a man-centered one. Man-centered views of sin bring massive discourgament because one is primarily focused one their own condition and says, “I have sinned; I have thus and thus sinned, and therefore my condition is bad, and if my condition be bad now, it will never be better; Lord what will become of my soul? (81). On the other hand, God-centered views of your sin are primarily focused on sin as an offense against God. Since sin is an offense against the God who is revealed also as a forgiving God, one can be forgiven and humbled for sin instead of discouraged and proud. Discouragement sees only God as Judge, while humility sees God as a just Judge and loving Father. Humility and discouragement have an inverse relationship. Bridge states, “…the more you are discouraged, the less you will be humbled; and the more humbled you are, the less discouraged you will be” (83). Therefore labor to seek true humility by focusing on the God-centered nature of your sin and seeking to know your Father more.

 

5 Encouragements from Predestination

I preached on predestination recently at our local church (audio here) because Pastor Bob Hapgood has been scaling the Kilimanjaro that is Romans 9, and one of the things I tried to do was show how encouraging this doctrine is to those who trust Jesus. Often predestination and election get treated as something meant for controversy and debate or as a mystery to be pretty much left alone and avoided. This is a sad, and, in my opinion, weakens the church because of the tendency to either dodge or debate this glorious aspect of its identity.

Predestination should enhance your joy not disturb it.

I’m convinced that if you ignore or just argue about the doctrine of predestination you will miss out on one of God’s ways of blessing you (Eph. 1:3). The first several verses of Ephesians 1 unpack predestination in order to show that it is a part of the multifaceted ways that God has blessed you in Jesus Christ. Therefore predestination should enhance your joy not disturb it. What follows are a few of the many encouragements for Christians to draw from the reality that God predestines:

1. God chose you because he loved you. Ephesians 1:4-5, in the ESV translation, says, “in love God predestined”. Therefore predestination is motivated by love. This means that God’s choice of you derives from his love for you. Sovereign choice doesn’t detract from God’s love it is the fountainhead of God’s love. We don’t go deeper into love by sidestepping predestination. We go deeper into love by diving into its deeps. We are familiar with the fact that God so loved the world that he gave his Beloved Son, but need to become more familiar with the fact that God so loved the world that he predestined adopted sons in the Beloved from all eternity (Eph. 1:5).

2. You are a gift of love from the Father to the Son. John 17 reveals that your salvation was planned in the heart and mind of the Triune God before there ever was a you (17:2, 24). This means that God’s love for you is bigger than you. It is tied to the love for which the Father has for his Son. And the reason this is encouraging is because the size of God’s love for you is not to be gauged by his love for you but by his love for Jesus. From his very own mouth, Jesus said, “[Father] you sent me and loved them even as you loved me” (17:23). The astonishment that we should feel at being loved by God becomes even more mind-blowing because God’s love for us flows in the same stream as God’s love for God.

3. Your present sins may be many but your future sinlessness is certain. Romans 8:29 tells us that we have been “predestined to be conformed to the image of [Jesus].” As a son of God, you are guaranteed one day to look like the Son of God. Therefore you fight sin in hope not in defeated depression. Your Christlikeness is not dependent upon your performance but upon God’s predestination.

Your Christlikeness is not dependent upon your performance but upon God’s predestination.

4. Your very identity is “elect” because God has named you that. The apostle Peter begins his letter to those in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, and Bithynia by calling them “God’s elect” (1 Pe. 1:1). Contemporary Christians don’t normally go around calling each other “predestined” or “elect” or “chosen” or “called”, but there is no reason why we shouldn’t. In fact, if we were named this by God, what stops us from calling each other that? What kind of massive encouragement would it bring to believers to have spoken over their lives the fact that God has picked them? Psychologically we see in various social situations that many times a person lives up to what they are called to. If you are called “loser”, “failure”, even “sinner”, and the like over and over again you will probably live up to it. If you trust Jesus, you can be confident that God has given you a new name. You have been chosen. God has called you something that you are not in and of yourself to make you something that you are in him. So act like it. Be who you are. Be what you have been called to be. Live up to your name.

The little phrase “to the praise of the glory of God’s grace” helps us see that one of the best ways to do everything to the glory of God is to do everything celebrating and enjoying God’s grace.

5. God’s predestination of you enables you to live life to the highest purpose of your existence, namely, ”to praise of the glory of [God's] grace” (1:6). All of us have heard the phrase “do everything to the glory of God” and too often it becomes a cliché that means nothing in practice. The little phrase “to the praise of the glory of God’s grace” helps us see that one of the best ways to do everything to the glory of God is to do everything celebrating and enjoying God’s grace. Predestination has a unique way of drawing this out of us because it drowns out our propensity toward boasting and relying upon works and establishes the fact that it flows from the sovereign heart of God uninfluenced by human decision and work. Election strips us from taking one ounce of salvation and putting it in our portfolio and propels us into praising God exclusively for everything. Predestination is exceptional at displaying that every piece of salvation is gift, and one’s who have been given such a great gift will joyfully praise and glorify the Giver. We live “to the praise of the glory of the grace of God” when we recognize that predestination is all of grace and for God’s glory.

Be encouraged! Predestination is meant to bedazzle your heart not just boggle your mind.

13 Ways to Be a Fool

1. Deny the existence of God.

“The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” (Psalm 53:1)

2. Do things that bring sorrow to your mom.

“…a foolish son is a sorrow to his mother.” (Proverbs 10:1)

3. Despise wisdom and instruction.

“…fools despise wisdom and instruction.” (Proverbs 1:7)

4. Do what is right in your own eyes.

“The way of a fool is right in his own eyes…” (Proverbs 12:15)

5. Be opinionated without knowing what your talking about.

“A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion.” (Proverbs 18:2)

6. Be short tempered.

“A man of quick temper acts foolishly…” (Proverbs 14:17)

7. Despise your mom.

“…a foolish man despises his mother.” (Proverbs 15:20)

8. Grieve your dad.

“A foolish son is a grief to his father…” (Proverbs 17:25)

9. Quarrel a lot.

“…every fool will be quarreling.” (Proverbs 20:3)

10. Trust in your own mind.

“Whoever trusts in his own mind is a fool…” (Proverbs 28:26)

11. Exalt yourself and/or plan evil things.

“If you have been foolish, exalting yourself, or if you have been devising evil, put your hand on your mouth.” (Proverbs 30:32)

12. Don’t take advice.

“Better was a poor and wise youth than an old and foolish king who no longer knew how to take advice.” (Ecclesiastes 4:13)

13. Never shut-up but keep talking on and on and on ad nauseam. Ec. 10:14

“…fools talk on and on.” (Ecclesiastes 10:14, NRSV)

In short, if you don’t want to be a fool, trust God, be humble, pursue wisdom, watch your mouth, and honor your mom.

*All Scriptures English Standard Version except where otherwise noted.

 

The “Perilous Business” of Shrinking the Gospel

I think there is a certain kind of putting aside secondary matters and doctrines and unifying with fellow brothers and sisters in Christ which brings great glory to God and is needed among fellow Christians, yet I think when the overwhelming ethos of a person or a movement is to shrink the gospel to its bare minimum one risks far too much.

We do not adorn the gospel by becoming ruggedly doctrinaire or pompous in the way we hold to God’s gracious good news, but we do not adorn it either when try to shrink the magnificent ocean of gospel truth down to a puddle on the side of a curb to splash our footsies in.

I understand the heart behind this. There is a desire to not cut off anyone from the faith, avoid pride, walk in love and humility, and honor Jesus’ passion for unity in his prayer in John 17. Obviously, these are wonderful things and Christian virtues that are essential in a polarizing world.

We do not adorn the gospel by becoming ruggedly doctrinaire or pompous in the way we hold to God’s gracious good news, but we do not adorn it either when try to shrink the magnificent ocean of gospel truth down to a puddle on the side of a curb to splash our footsies in.

We must not equivocate pompous with those who have a passion for doctrine or humble with those who tend to minimize it. Pomposity and humility come in all kinds of shapes and sizes among all types of pastors and laypeople, networks and denominations.

J. Gresham Machen in his book What is Faith? offers a warning to those who engage in the  ”perilous business” of shrinking Christian doctrine down to its bare minimums:

For our part we have not much sympathy with the present widespread desire of finding some greatest common denominator which shall unite men of different Christian bodies; for such a greatest common denominator is often found to be very small indeed. Some men seem to devote most of their energies to the task of seeing just how little of Christian truth they can get along with. We, however, regard it as a perilous business; we prefer, instead of seeing how little of Christian truth we can get along with, to see just how much of Christian truth we can obtain. [(Carlisle, PA: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1991, first published 1925), 159-160)]

God’s University of Brokenness & People After His Heart

I’ve been going through 1 Samuel lately and observing what makes up a David and a Saul. Sadly, all too often, I see Saul in my own heart more than David, and I want to resemble the man after God’s heart. This phrase “a man after God’s heart” (1 Sam. 13:14) is a noble thing to desire. Many use it, but don’t always consider how this kind of person is fashioned. Gene Edwards, in his book, A Tale of Three Kings, speaks of the kind of school that makes these kind of people,

God has a university. It’s a small school. Few enroll; even fewer graduate. Very, very few indeed.

God has this school because he does not have broken men and women. Instead, he has several other types of people. He has people who claim to have God’s authority…and don’t–people who claim to be broken…and aren’t. And people who do have God’s authority, but who are mad and unbroken. And he has, regretfully, a great mixture of everything in between. All of these he has in abundance, but broken men and women, hardly at all. (p. 15)

David himself, in a pivotal moment of deep confession, wrote about the kind of heart and the kind of sacrifices that God desires from his people:

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and contrite heart, O God, You will not despise. (Psalms 51:17)

What is left out of the call to be a person after God’s heart, is that the kind of heart God is after is a broken one. God’s delight is not in those who think they can give him a worthwhile sacrifice and offer him something (51:16), rather his delight rests upon those who admit they cannot and in desperation offer up their broken and sinful selves to his magnificent sin-washing and new-heart giving mercy (51:7).

Psalm 51 is clearly a confessional Psalm of sinful brokenness penned by David after his adulterous and murderous affair, but this is not the only kind of brokenness that David experienced. He experienced the brokenness of being hated by God’s anointed king. Therefore broken people don’t just know their own sin. They have also known the sins of others against them, but this does not harden and embitter them–it softens them. Godly brokenness over personal sins and the sins of others produces tenderheartedness.

Broken men and women after God’s heart are not simply “woe is me” people. They don’t complain consistently about how they have been wounded by others (even when massively so), and they don’t simply revel in their own sinfulness (of the most heinous kind) in a kind of overly introspective and depressed false humility. To the contrary, the “joy of salvation” (51:12) is poured upon the broken and humbled. The tune resulting from brokenness is a song of joyful praise (51:14) not a morose dirge. The broken heart is the new heart that only God creates (51:10) and is the heart God is after–”The Lord has sought out for Himself a man after his own heart” (13:14).

A Tenderhearted Man

Tenderhearted.

The week of my 33rd birthday, now just a few weeks past, I felt particularly drawn to this phrase. In fact, I believe this year, I am to pray, in the power of the Spirit, this reality into myself and into my family.

No one becomes tenderhearted without prayer, because being a tenderhearted person is impossible. It is the work of the Holy Spirit. Soft hearts are not made by men, they are born by God through the new birth. And being created by the Spirit they can only be cultivated by the Spirit as well.

We hear from history of lionhearted men, but not often do we hear of tenderhearted men

The Greek Lexicon’s define tenderheartedness as compassionate. In Greek medicine tenderheartedness referred to having healthy bowels, which exposes the utterly personal inner-ness and surety of being externalized background for the word. Ray Ortlund spoke of it in this way: “It seems inescapable that this word describes a certain emotional tone, a softness of disposition, a heart that feels for others.” Tenderheartedness demands emotion, as it is not a cognitive attribute, but lies at the core of one’s heart and visibly overflows to others. In the New Testament the word is used twice demonstrating that a tenderhearted man is a kind, forgiving (Eph. 4:32), and humble man (1 Pe. 3:8).

Defining it is difficult, living it is harder, but it can only be properly defined by being lived. Therefore its easiest to point to a person. We hear from history of lionhearted men, but not often do we hear of tenderhearted men. Yet there was One.

The ultimate man of the tender-heart was Jesus. If King Richard of England had the lionheart, King Jesus had the tenderheart. Compassion was Jesus’ most distinct emotion in his earthly ministry, and forgiveness thundered from the cross louder than the hammered nails that hung him there. Humility characterized everything he did, as he came from the glory of heaven to the sin-cursed earth to serve and save sin-filled humanity. Jesus embodies and models the man of the tenderheart.

Being a hard man is easy. Sometimes the fact that life is hard, work is frustrating, marriage is difficult, and death is coming causes hardness to callous the heart. But this is not as it should be. Life, marriage, family, work, and death when shaped by the Spirit can make soft-light-tender-hearted men.

Using the example of marriage, Jesus himself said that the reason why marriage is hard and divorce exists is because the men that get married are hard-hearted (Mt. 19:8). Therefore marriage is a perfect place to find that you are not naturally tenderhearted, and when redeemed by Jesus is an ideal place to cultivate softheartedness. One of the reason marriage exists is to make men’s hearts soft and tender not hard and harsh.

This is what I strive to be in every area of my life. Being a man is a call to be soft, pliable and tender or to say it differently humble, forgiving, and compassionate. May God raise up more men in the church that when dead have the following listed on their tombstone:

Here lies ____________ the tenderhearted.

Struggling with Unforgiveness

This is a guest post by Dave Johnson. Dave is a close friend of mine and president of the Johnson Consulting Group where he is a wealth manager. I serve as a wealth manager there and research manager there as well. He is also an elder at Life Connection Church which is a part of the Acts 29 network of churches. You can follow him on twitter here.

Recently my wife and I were falsely accused by a fellow believer from church on an issue that was untrue and unfounded. What was hard to swallow was the fact that this same person had done this to myself at least once in the past, to other Pastors on staff, and to church members. I write this not because of how the church handled it (which was scripturally sound), but because of how I wanted to respond.

I was quick to point out to the other pastors/elders his sin, and I was ready to not only pronounce judgement, but I also thought it would be best if we just asked him to leave the church and go cause trouble elsewhere! Then I had opportunity to sleep on it, and the next morning I found myself reading “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you” (Eph. 4:32) and “bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive” (Col. 3:13).

If you are a Christian, you know that we are the most forgiven people in the world.

I found myself in a little dilemma with my own spirit! I wanted to judge quickly, empty the trash, wipe my hands clean, and move on. But I could not do that!  As I read God’s Word, I realized that he has given us a very high standard to live up to when we have the opportunity (like I did) to forgive someone else. Thankfully, God also gives us the grace and direction we need to imitate Him by forgiving others as He has forgiven us (me).

If you are a Christian, you know that we are the most forgiven people in the world. It is easy for me to preach to others, “forgive as Jesus forgave you”, but when the offense is against me, it is not so easy to preach such things…especially to a person that has a record of wrongs (I’m the one keeping score).

Well, after a little wrestling with my spirit, I began to listen to His voice and began to pray for God to soften my own heart. I asked God to help me extend to this man (forgiveness) what has been extended to me (forgiveness from the Father over and over and over again). Ken Sande says “to forgive someone means that I release him or her from liability to suffer punishment or penalty.”  Lord knows that I wanted this man to suffer.  He injured my wife’s heart by the things that he said. He made me mad that he had done this before to myself and to others. Wasn’t it time for him to pay? I realized then that forgiveness is a decision that I can choose to act upon or ignore.

The answer was clear. While the pastors/elders practiced godly church discipline on this man, I still needed to respond by forgiving this man and his wife, and help them to see the truth and help bring them into a right relationship with God: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Rom. 12:21).

If you are struggling with unforgiveness like I was, I suggest you take another look at the enormous debt for which God has forgiven you. Ask yourself whether you have ever treated God or others in the same way that you have been treated by the person who wronged you. Remind yourself what you deserve because of your sins, and then rejoice in the amazing promise of His Word: “The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever. He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us” (Ps. 103: 8-11).