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1Corinthians
13:5 (Agape) ... keeps no record of wrongs.
Philippians
4:2 I plead with Euodia and I plead with Syntyche to
agree with each other in the Lord.
THE
PROBLEM
Ver. 2. I
beseech Euodias, and beseech Syntyche,
The problem was a disagreement between two women, who were members of the
church at Philippi, and who seem to have been at variance with each other
on account of some temporal and civil issues. It appears it had
become a difficult task
to reconcile them, although here Paul entreats them in the most tender and
importunate manner to agree. Their problem may have involved wrong
sentiments contrary to the church, since Paul is including it in this
epistle.
that
they be of the same mind in the Lord;
Paul asks that either they agree together, and be reconciled to each
other, considering the relation they stood in to one another, and to the
Lord; or that they become of the same mind, and embrace the same truths,
and profess and maintain the same principles their church does.
THE
SOLUTION
The answer to the problem
between these two women can be found in another writing of Paul,
1Corinthians 13: 4 Love
is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not
proud.
5 It is not rude, it is
not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of
wrongs.
6 Love does not delight
in evil but rejoices with the truth.
7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes,
always perseveres.
The
love mentioned here is the word "AGAPE,"
God’s kind of love. When the world speaks of love, it refers to
"EROS." That love is said to be "blind" to
faults of its object; however, one day its eyes are opened and everything
falls apart.
Agape
sees. It not only sees the sins of its object, but it "covers
a multitude of sins." The Scriptures never use the
word eros for love. Eros is the kind of love that seeks for itself
only the best, the highest, and the most beautiful. Eros is a selfish
love; a self-for-self love. Agape
is God's kind of love; a self-for-others love.
Note John Gill’s
comments about the last part of verse 5: "the
meaning is, either that one possessed of this grace of love does not think
of the evil that is done him by another; he forgives, as God has forgiven
him, so as to forget the injury done him, and remembers it no more; and so
the Arabic version reads it, "and remembers not evil"; having
once forgiven it, he thinks of it no more; or he does not meditate
revenge, or devise mischief, and contrive evil against man that has done
evil to him, as Esau did against his brother Jacob; so the Ethiopic
version, by way of explanation, adds, "neither thinks evil, nor
consults evil"; or as the word here used will bear to be rendered,
"does not impute evil"; reckon or place it to the account of him
that has committed it against him, but freely and fully forgives, as God,
when he forgives sin, is said not to impute it; or such an one is not
suspicious of evil in others, he does not indulge evil surmises, and
groundless jealousies; which to do is very contrary to this grace of love.
I do not know what their
disagreement was about, but you may note that in Philippians, Paul does
not even discuss the matter of who may be right. Who is right is not even
considered, only that they come to an agreement. Even a casual reading of
1Corinthians 13 would give both of these women the solution to the
problem. They were bickering and backbiting. It was probably disrupting
the church.
Agape,
according to one version, "does not take
into account a wrong suffered." Note the word
"account." The word is a bookkeeping term. It was used by
accountants in Paul's day to describe debts outstanding in the ledger
books. "Does not take into account" means it does not take into
account all that is owed me. It means not keeping a ledger of the debts
due me.
Another translation of
that is "Love does not keep lists."
Now, what is it talking about? It is not talking about money, but it could
include money. It is primarily talking about when someone has done you
ill, when someone has deeply wronged you and hurt you, you don’t write
that in the ledger and say, "One day you will pay for that." It
does not keep a list of all the people that one day you will get even
with.
I know of an actual case
where an elder in a certain church was having problems. The pastor, in an
effort to help the situation, took the elder to a meeting of the deacons
and elders. He said, "Obviously you are having problems. Would you
like to tell us about it?" The man had been waiting for this
opportunity. Believe it or not, he took out of his pocket a black book. He
turned to the front page and said, "This is my problem. On December
4, 19__, so-and-so said so-and-so to me and they have never
apologized." And he went on, "January 6, 19__, etc."
Can you believe this? This
man was in his 60’s, and he had kept a ledger over the years of everyone
that had hurt him, everyone that had said a word against him in the
church. And he said, "Finally the time has come that I am going to
get even."
Now I don’t suppose
there is another man in America that keeps a little black book of all the
times someone has hurt him. But I suppose that just about every other person in
America has a "black book" in the back of their head. That is
what this is talking about.
Love doesn’t keep a
ledger. It doesn’t say that so-and-so owes me because of what they
did to me. It doesn’t keep a long list of wrongs done to me, waiting for
the day that I can get even with them. Agape doesn’t keep
a book. Agape quickly forgets all wrongs done to it. That is what it is
saying.
WHAT
DOES IT MEAN TO KEEP A LIST?
What does it mean to keep
a list? It keeps me from forgetting. That is the whole point here,
obviously. It makes Agape part of my memory system. Keeping a
list is remembering. It is deliberately remembering, mulling over all of
our resentments, all of our bitternesses. We don’t let them go. We hold
on to them.
You know what I mean. When
you can’t sleep at night, you go over the lists. "One day, one day
I will get even." Some of you won't know what this is unless you
go back to when you were without Christ. This is one area that should be
dealt with very quickly when you come to Christ.
As I shall point out, this
is the worst thing in the church, resentment, holding a grudge,
bitterness, that private history that we keep in our memory bank, the
vault where we treasure it. We have hoarded away all the hurts of life in
a secret room in our heart. We often go down and unlock the room. There is
our treasure, where we are keeping it for our private use.
We go back over those
secret moments in our mind. We live them over again and say, "He said
that. He said it. He hurt me. She did it. And I bled for weeks over
it." We turn it over. We treasure it. We mull over every detail of
the memory. We go back to the hurt and we enjoy it. Why? Why would we
enjoy going over the hurt?
We have pleasure, not so
much in the hurt, but in the resentment we feel toward the one who hurt
us. Do you understand what I am saying? We need that hurt that fuels our
resentment, and that is what we love, our resentment. I resent him, I hold
on to it, I love it.
WHY
DO WE HOLD ON TO RESENTMENT
Why do you cling
to it so? Because you always feel superior to the one you resent. You look
down on them. You are up. They are down. You despise them. How do you get
that out of it? Because what is resentment but telling yourself over and
over again, "They were wrong. I was right. And that is the only
reason, believe me, that is the only reason that I want to get even. They
have got to admit they were wrong, because they were wrong. They have to
tell me that I am right, because I am right. I’m the better of the two
of us."
I love that. Oh, I love
that. I’ll keep my vault of treasured resentments. I’ll put up with
remembering the hurt, because it makes me feel I’m the right person who
has been wronged by the wrong person.
It also gives me much
pleasure because I think I am God anyway. I can sit on my throne and plot
my judgments. I can fantasize how one day he will pay for it. Until then I
will withdraw from him the most precious thing in the world - my
friendship. I will get revenge. I love it. Do you understand what I am
saying?
The keeping of lists, that’s
the reason we do it. Why keep a list otherwise? There is pleasure there.
We become movie makers. Of course, we are the star. In our movie we are
wronged and hurt. We remember how it happened. So we make the movie
exactly. This isn’t fiction. This happened.
I remember as I make the
movie. This is how it happened. This is what he said. This is how I felt.
This is the way I looked. Poor me. As a movie maker I can make the end of
the movie. Oh, the end of the movie, where I see him groveling before me,
apologizing and saying, "I was wrong. I was wrong." And then I
play the movie over and over, again and again. By now, some of these are
"old movies."
We love to think that one
day we well achieve it and he will say that I am right. For that prospect I will
nurture the hurt and enjoy the resentment.
WHAT
MAKES RESENTMENT SO BAD?
What makes resentment so
bad? It is because it is deliberate. It is a planned and plotted hoped
destruction of another human being. You see, compared to this, bragging
becomes nothing. In other hurts listed in chapter 13, we suck people
into our own emptiness, but this goes further. This is going out to get
them. This is spending my days thinking about it. This is preserving the memory to be sure I don’t forget.
I wonder if we realize
what sin is. We all know some memory verses so well that we don’t really
know what they are saying. Like Romans 3:23. Do you know that one? "All
have sinned and come short of the glory of God." Now what
does that mean? What is sin? Well, you sin against God. Now, honestly, how
do you do that? Where is He so you can sin against Him? In many ways He
doesn’t seem too upsetable. Seriously, what is sin?
I came to a shocking
realization. Of the many lists of sins in the Bible, lists of things that
God says He hates and abhors, in my count there are maybe two that in any
way could be said to be solely against God. Consider this list in Romans chapter
one: They are full
of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers,
God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing
evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless,
heartless, ruthless. Although they know God's righteous decree that those
who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very
things but also approve of those who practice them.
It says they are "god
haters" and that is sort of against God. Every other one
is a sin against another human being. You can’t sin against God
effectively without first sinning against another human being. In that way
you get at God. Right?
HOW
DO YOU SIN?
What does it mean "all
have sinned and come short of the glory of God?" Come
short of the glory of God? What is the glory of God? For years I had a
mental image of a fluffy cloud that had light coming from it and that is
the glory of God. For some reason I had fallen short of that, what ever
that means. What did you see?
Exodus 34 and 36 tells me
what the glory of God is. It is LOVE. It says that you have sinned in that
you have fallen short of loving human beings as God loves them. That is
sin. You can’t just sin against God. Other human beings are involved.
Why is that? Because of
who man is. Man is made in the image and likeness of God. You hurt man and
it is an insult against the God Who made man IN His image. Have you read
Genesis chapter nine? It makes a big deal about murder. It goes on about
how horrible it is to murder. Why? It ends up saying, "Whoever
sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image
of God has God made man."
That is why an
evolutionist doesn’t know what to do with it. If we are just
sophisticated animals, then why can’t I kill my neighbor’s son who
turned over my garbage cans. I killed the racoons that did that. Why can’t
I kill him? Well that is different. Why is it different? I’ll tell you
why, because I believe in the God of creation and when He made man, He
made him in the image of God. He didn’t extend the ape-ness. When God
made the monkeys, He said that’s it. There was a Divine pause and then
God said, "Now let’s make man (different from every other created
being) in Our image."
Now I have a reason for
treating man with more respect than animals, he is different, made in God’s
image. I have a foundation for my faith now. I have discovered that
the person sitting beside me is awesome, precious, far more important than
I thought they were. They were made in God’s image.
I know of a fellow who
copied a Piccaso painting. He said it was easy to do. He took his copy to the
art store and said he would like three or four thousand dollars for it. Of
course, he couldn’t get it, even though it looked very much the same. It
had the wrong signature at the bottom. You see, you have a signature on
your life. Even if you are a person who is not born again, you have the
same signature on your life. Signed by God.
Well, if I destroy a piece
of art that has the signature of Rembrandt, I have insulted the name of
Rembrandt. I have said it is not worth a thing, burn it. I haven’t said
anything about the painting itself as much as I have said something about
the artist who painted it. If they find a Rembrandt in terrible condition,
they will pay thousands of dollars to restore it. Why? It has his signature on it. The signature gives it worth.
I come to my fellow man.
He is an awesome creature with God’s signature, made in God’s image
and likeness. God says, "If you touch him, you touch Me." When I
insult my fellow man, the whole of God rises up against me. Proverbs 16
says there are things that God hates and detests. Number one on the
list is an arrogant look. That is, I look down on my fellow human being
and God says, "You don’t dare do that. I made him in My
image."
Now, do you realize what I
am saying? When God defines sin, He defines it as every way that I act
toward you in UNLOVE, act toward you other than the way God would
act, any action towards you treating you as a piece of dirt, as nothing.
God
says, "That’s sin, because when you touch one of these people, you
touch Me."
Yes, we have all sinned
and fallen short of the glory of God, but not in the way that we thought.
That is why we mistakenly think that we can love God and despise our
fellow human beings. You can’t do that. That is why Jesus said, "If
you love Me, keep my commandments. Don’t just keep telling Me you love
Me." The way you sin against God is by somehow beating up on a fellow
human being, and the way you ultimately love God is by loving other
human beings.
DAVID’S
SIN
David puzzled me in Psalm
51. A year after he had sinned with Bathsheba, God speaks to him and he
calls for God’s mercy and confesses his sin. He said, "Against
you and you only have I sinned." Oh, come on David,
that is a cop out. You are gliding over it. You sinned against Bathsheba,
Uriah, Israel, all those who trusted you. You say you only sinned against
God? No.
Oh, but he did. He is far
more correct than my statement. If I had said that he sinned against
another human being, I would have missed the point. When he touched
Bathsheba, he was sinning against the God in Whose image she was made.
When he murdered Uriah, he was sinning against the God Who made him. Oh,
David, you are right. The way you sin against God is to sin against people
who have His signature upon them.
THE
PHARISEE’S SIN
That is why Jesus was so
angry with the Pharisees. God put the Pharisees in the time of Jesus so
there would be a stark difference between Jesus and the best that religion
has ever attained. Why was Jesus so upset with the Pharisees?
Hear me on this. He was angry with the Pharisees because they loved God,
and oh, how they loved God. They arranged their entire life around loving
God. They loved God but they despised people. Jesus thundered against them
the worst words that are in the Bible because they loved God and didn’t
care about people.
Jesus on the other hand,
loved people and was accused of not loving God. Do you see that? Look what
Jesus said when He took a helpless child and set him in the midst of them,
"He who receives such a helpless one,
receives Me. He who receives Me receives Him Who sent Me."
Do you know Who you are receiving? You say it is just a kid. He is saying
that in the face of that child is the Trinity. If you receive that child,
you receive Jesus. Receive that child and you receive the One Who sent
Jesus. Do I know who is sitting next to me?
HAVE
YOU FED JESUS?
See Matthew 25. When
the righteous are gathered before Him, He welcomes them into the Kingdom
and tells them that when He was hungry they fed Him, when He was naked
they clothed Him, etc. They asked when they did this and He said that when
they did it to the "least" of His brethren, they did it to Him.
He didn’t say they did it "for" Him. He said they did it
"to" Him. Do you see? What you do to your fellow man is what you
do to God. If you missed it the first go around, He goes to those whom He
says did not feed Him and clothe Him, those who did not do that for their
fellow man. How can anyone miss this point?
He says that if you treat
people as God would treat them, you are doing it to God. If you hurt
this person or neglect them or forbid them care, you are doing that to
God. It couldn’t be clearer.
BACK
TO RESENTMENT
Now, what do we have?
Here
is a man who sits down with a human being in his mind to plot revenge, to
plot how to hurt that man, to seek ways of his destruction, and he keeps such
thoughts in his treasure house, on a list. He chooses to look at that man and exclude
him and say that he is untouchable, he is not worth knowing. Such
plans constitute the most dangerous, the most frightening course of action a human
being can take, because in so doing I have taken on God in a most negative sense.
Do
you understand what I am saying?
Seeking revenge, making a
list, leads me into an UNREAL world. I put a man on my list, because
he has done something against me, or said something about me; I determine
it is time
to get out my book and write his name, and remember what he did. At that moment I
paralyze that man in his tracks in my mind. From that moment on,
as far as I’m concerned, he remains imprisoned in that moment. I won’t let
him do anything else. I don’t care what he does, he could die for me and
I will say he benefited from it. That man can do no more right. Once he is
entered on my list, I have condemned him to that one thing that he did. I
put on the glasses of revenge and everything he does now is distorted and
twisted to look like what he did before. Do you see what I am saying?
Remember? You have done
this, haven’t you? Somebody hurt you and from that day on they could do
no right. Once you held revenge or resentment, everything that person did
added fuel to the fire. And this view of them isn’t true, of course.
Absolutely, it isn’t
true. As I said, you enter into a world of unreality. Your brain becomes
addled. If you are holding revenge or resentment you are slightly insane.
He might have done that to you, but that is not the way he is. He
has done a lot of normal, good things since then, but you can’t allow
yourself to see that. You can’t.
WHY
DO WE DO IT?
And why do we do that?
To justify our resentment. We have to prove to ourselves,
"See, he can’t do anything right. That’s the way he is. He is not
worth it. That’s the way he is and the sooner I get even with him, the
better." See the insanity. It is induced in order to justify our keeping this resentment going, waiting for the day of reckoning.
Why? "If ever I do
make it up, he will pay for this." And how will he pay for it? We
will pull out the list. "I have been wanting to talk to you about
this for a long time. Do you remember what you said? Come on now, don’t
hedge. Do you remember what you did?" And I present my biased view of
that time and everything he said and did. And I will not make up
with him until he admits that he was wrong and I was right.
Then we rub our hands
together and say, "O.K., I’ll forgive you now. Ha-ha-ha." That’s
not forgiveness. But that is what Eros wants. Why? Because as I was
reaching for the highest and the best, (which, of course, is the Eros kind
of love: my good pleasure, my security, my happiness) I was hurt. All I
wanted was what is natural, to be looked after. It is such a
worthy request for such a wonderful person as I am. You did that? Eros is
hurt. I have been put down. I have been dismissed. For such a crime, they have got to pay. That is why Eros must do it that way. It is worth a lot
to hear, "I was wrong. You were right." Eros will wait for that.
That is worth a lot in Eros language. Until that day comes, I will just
show the movie that proves I was right.
CONTRAST
AGAPE
Agape has the nearest
expression of its glory in the full glory
when it forgives. For if I say, "God is
Agape," I think His fullest glory as God is when He
forgives the sinner. And when a man will forgive as God forgives, then I
believe he has understood the glory of God and will flow in Agape at both
the simplest level of the Christian life (for it is ABC stuff) and has begun to live in what Jesus meant when He said, "I
have shared with them the glory that you have given to Me."
Learn to forgive as only God can forgive and you enter into His
glory.
In another sense, it would
be true to say, if I have truly seen Agape forgiveness, if I have
received of that forgiveness, really seen it and know that I am forgiven
from the hand of God, I AM STUCK. To see it is to do it. When a man says he has been forgiven and turns around and does not forgive his enemy,
I have to say he has not seen it, nor is he forgiven. That is what
Jesus said.
Agape keeps no lists.
Agape has a terrible memory when it comes to remembering wrongs committed
against it. Agape has one goal, that is to help, and to heal, and to bring
salvation to everyone it contacts.
HOW
DOES AGAPE FORGIVE?
How does Agape forgive?
Much could be said, but let’s go through it simply. It is the most
important thing in the world. I don’t think it could be summed up better
than it is in the story of the Prodigal Son, because that story was introduced for
the Pharisees who were criticizing Jesus for being with sinners. The
Pharisees said, "There is joy in heaven in
the presence of God, when a sinner is finally cast into hell."
(this can be found in their contemporary literature) "God delights in
damning sinners." To that statement Jesus gave the story of the
Prodigal Son and in that story there is a reference to their expression,
only with a difference. Remember ? He said, "There
is joy in heaven when a sinner comes home." He turned it
to the truth and was saying, "God is not like you think He is. He is
the God of infinite forgiveness."
When the Prodigal Son came
home, he was a shameful disgrace to his father. He had sinned against
every decency of the culture of that day. Remember, he wasted the money
that really belonged to his father in the big city with riotous living ,
finally ending up in the hog pen. He was probably a slave because he did
not have shoes for his feet. He then comes to himself remembering his
father. (Thank God he did not remember his elder brother.) He said,
"I have a good Dad and even the servants in my Father’s house have
plenty and to spare."
He came home expecting to
be made one of his father’s "hired servants," not a regular
servant. The hired servants lived down in the village wherever they
could find a bed, not on the farm. "I will ask him if I can be one of
his hired servants, then he will perhaps call me first when he needs extra
servants." That is what he came home to say. "I will get
something, but it will be a pittance, not much, just something."
Instead he meets with
Agape love. Agape love that was seeking, searching, had been looking
for him for years and had in no way harbored resentments, but was only
waiting for an opportunity to pour itself undeservedly, unreservedly upon
the son, which it does.
Now how was that
expressed? As he was about to say
"make me a hired servant"
the father stops him. "I won’t have any of that nonsense." The
son is met with Agape. Look how the father goes about this. Next thing we see is that
he "sent" for the best robe. Father and son had met together "a great
way off." Why didn’t they go back together and get the robe? They
were going back home. Why not just go back together and get the robe for
him when they reached the house?
Because his dad meant, "I have forgiven you, but you don’t look forgiven. You are
in rags. You don’t smell forgiven. I am sending for the best robe. Then
I am going to put it on you. I am going to put shoes on your feet (because
in that culture shoeless feet meant you were a slave) and then we are
going to walk through town and the farm yard and everyone will see you
dressed just like me, with the shoes of sonship on your feet and no one,
NO ONE, will know where you have been." THAT’S GOD. THAT’S
AGAPE LOVE.
He did not blab it all
over town. He said, "Son, this is just between you and me. When I
forgive, only you know what I have forgiven you of and let’s not talk
about it anymore." He put a ring on his finger. The ring in those days was like wearing an American Express card on your hand. That was the
way you bought things in the store. It was a signet ring; it was a
signature. You planted it into the wax and it would leave your promise to
pay the debt. His father was paying for everything. This was saying,
"I know you walked off with all the cash, but I will pay for
everything because you have nothing with which to buy anything."
Then they came home and
the elder brother showed up with sourness and anger. He is just like Eros;
all upset. He is not getting what he wants and he is seeing his wicked
brother getting what he never got. He starts the movies all over in his
mind. He has been playing them over and over.
Do you remember what the
father said to the elder son? He said, "He was dead. He is alive again. We don’t
talk about it." See what I mean about no lists? The father had not
been keeping a list. The elder brother had. The father said that he did
not even want to discuss it. Agape takes my past sin and says, "It is
dead." "Today is a new day," says Agape. "The past is
dead. You are alive again. It is time for a party." Eros goes bananas
at that. "Hey, I have my list here. Somebody is going to pay."
Father says, "I’ll pay it." It is over. It is paid for. It is
done. A new beginning.
That is what was done with
you. Exactly. You were greeted by the arms of God’s love. He wept. He
cried. He says, "You are home. You are forgiven. But no one is going
to know about this." So He gives you His own righteousness through
the blood of Jesus. He declares you His own son. He presents you to the
universe as if you had never sinned. He receives you into His presence as
if you were Jesus Himself. Someone may say, "We’d better talk
about your sin." God says, "Forget it." God has never
rehashed one sin you have committed. Forget it. It is over. It is done.
Forgiven. Forgotten. We start again. It is a new day. That is forgiveness.
That is how you received it.
HOW
CAN YOU FORGIVE THAT WAY?
You say, "How can I
forgive like God forgives." Actually, you don’t have a choice. A
certain king found out about a man who had embezzled a fortune, enough
money for several lifetimes. He called him in and the man fell on his
face and begged for time to pay it. The king had compassion and forgave
the entire debt. He freely forgave him, undeservedly, no questions asked.
The man met someone that
owed him $20 and he grabed him by the neck and threw him in jail and said
he is not getting out until he pays every penny of that debt. The king
heard about it and had that man who had done this after being forgiven so
much, thrown to the tormentors.
Jesus asked, "Do you
understand? Do you get the message?" Every sin you've ever committed is
entirely wiped out, completely forgiven. So, when someone says a bad word about you
and you say, "I’ll never forgive them," do you see what you
are doing? Do you know what I
mean when I say that if you have ever seen forgiveness, you can’t do
that? The man in Jesus' story had never understood his forgiveness. He probably thought
he had pulled a fast one on the king. He did not understand forgiveness.
How do I forgive? I
forgive you exactly as God has forgiven me. It is when I have seen Agape
that I can become Agape. 1John says, "We
Agape because He first Agaped us." So, you come to me. You
have sinned against me. How shall I forgive you? FREELY. And since
I don’t keep lists, I don’t even want to talk about it. There is no
point in it. And I promise you, I will not blab it around town, either. I’ll
put the coat on you and give you the shoes. I promise. When an elder brother
comes and wants to talk about the list and asks, "Do you remember
what I did?" I will tell him to hush. That is dead. A new day has
begun. That’s how you forgive... FREELY ... FULLY. It is the greatest
power in the world: AGAPE LOVE.
I
CAN’T
You
say, "I can’t do that." You can. Remember, that is what the
disciples said when Jesus told them to forgive even if it was seven times
a day. They said, "Pray for us. Give us faith. We can’t do that. We
need help." Jesus then said this verse that has been completely taken
out of context and misapplied over and over. "If
you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say to this mulberry
tree, ‘Be uprooted and cast into the sea’ and it will obey you."
I have heard this preached so as to say that with faith you can get automobiles and
houses and all kinds of things. It has nothing to do with that. It is
Jesus' answer to a question.
The disciples said they could not
have the kind of faith that would allow them to forgive a man seven times
a day. They asked for more faith. Jesus answer is, "No. I won’t
give you any more faith. Because if you have as little faith as a grain of
mustard seed, that is the beginning of the beginning of all you need. It
is enough. All you do now is "say" to this ugly thing that is
growing in your life, this resentment, this little room of horrors,
"Be removed and cast into the sea of
forgetfulness and it will obey you."
You say, "I don’t
feel like it." Of course, you don’t feel like it. It has nothing to
do with feelings. It has everything to do with the Agape, committed Love
of God. I simply say, "I forgive you." And it shall be cast into
the sea of forgetfulness.
You say, "but it
keeps coming back." Of course, it does. The resurrection has not
taken place yet. It keeps coming back, but don’t forgive it again. No.
When that feeling of "how could he have done that to me" comes
up, stop in your tracks and say, "I have spoken forgiveness, back there, half an
hour ago, I did it. He is forgiven. I will not consider it anymore." And in
an hour’s time, when self-pity comes to you and says, "He did it to
you," you stop what you are doing and say, "One and one half
hours ago I dealt with this and it is done. He is forgiven in the name of
the Lord Jesus."
Gradually your old
projection room of
horrors will get the message. Throw away the photographs. Throw away the
old movies of bitterness. You will then begin to flow in an ease of
forgiving.
THE
EXAMPLE
"To
this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an
example, that you should follow in his steps. He committed no sin, and no
deceit was found in his mouth. When they hurled their insults at
him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead,
he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in
his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for
righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed." 1Peter
2
As He hung on the cross,
He prayed, "Father, forgive them, they know
not what they do." That is the ultimate of
forgiveness. If this is what Christ did and Christ lives in you, then this
is what you will do as you live FROM HIM.
TO
LIVE IS CHRIST
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