Forgive

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“Bear with one another and forgive any complaint you may have against someone else. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.”

We are to let go of all our anger and bitterness and forgive others who hurt us and freely let it all pass away from us. We are to be kind to those around us who hurt us and seek to make peace with those who even use us and put us down. We are not to offer like for like and and return bad behaviour to those who dish it out. We are to be the peacemakers and the humble servants of the Lord.

This is a tall order for human beings, since naturally we are the opposite and must be taught to have regard for others.

Forgiveness is easy to think and say but hard to do. We rehearse our hurts and grievances and find it challenging to let the thoughts go that keep the resentful feelings in business. There are times that people will hurt us so badly that it damages our lives irreparably. The command then becomes more difficult than ever. There are situations that are so toxic that we have to fight to forgive but can never really fix the situation. There are people we will just have to let go of and commit our way to the Lord. There are people who become so detrimental to us that we must move away from them for the sake of our health and well-being, but the desire to harbour grudges must be dealt with in our own mind. It is all too easy for the root of bitterness to take root and determine the course of our thinking, our motivations and decisions. We can become bitter people and useless to the Lord.

When this root of unforgiveness and bitterness begins to grow, the only remedy is confession to the Lord and turning our minds deliberately to good things.

“Finally, brothers, whatever things are true, whatever things are honourable, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report; if there is any virtue, and if there is any praise, think about these things.”

Philippians 4:8

This verse from Scripture is a great antidote for many problems in our thought life. We do not meditate on the negative but on what the Lord has done and is doing for us. The strength comes straight away, for we are obeying Him in our mind. The actions will follow and His comfort will come.

The terrible situations in life cannot be fixed by us, but we place our hope in the Lord that He will work all things out for our benefit and for the good of our souls. We remember and meditate on all the good He has done for us, especially in Christ in the spiritual realms and we are cheered and motivated to leave the problems to God.

Compassion

“Put on therefore, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, a heart of compassion, kindness, lowliness, humility, and perseverance;”

This is the antidote to spiritual failure. We put off the prejudice and exclusivity and put on these beautiful spiritual virtues. We have these virtues in us as God’s people, and they should flow out of us in all the circumstances of our lives. We can exhibit these graces because we have been made holy and are beloved of God, therefore our hearts are full of love towards others and we reach out with them.

Our heart should resonate with the heart of God and be in tune with His will for people and this present world. Hearts full of compassion which can empathise with other people and identify with them in sorrow and joy is the mark of the Christian. Kindness is our identity for Jesus has directly told us to be kind. We are able to humble ourselves before people of all sorts and have ceased thinking more highly of ourselves than we ought to think. Our spiritual energy is able to last out to the end of the task and carry out the will of the Father in heaven, as our Saviour did. We become more and more like Christ as we use these virtues and conform ourselves to His perfect pattern.

Having a heart of compassion is key. Without a loving heart the other graces will not follow. We will not be kind or lowly, but be puffed up with the sense of our own importance and make no impact on the souls of other people. Our faith will be small and we will be tempted to give up. Our focus will be on ourselves and how we can get people to help us, and not on making such sacrifice ourselves for other people. The inward looking viewpoint will increase the selfish attitude that still resides in our souls and make us small-minded and self-orientated.

Only the love of Christ can sustain us and deal with our many foibles and weaknesses. It is He alone who can see His people through to the very end and save our souls from all that would drag us down. Only He can releases from a myopic view of the world and widen our outlook towards other situations other than our own.

Do not forget that we are chosen and kept in Him and through Jesus we will gain the victory. We are brave in our resistance against sin and in facing our failures for His sake. Emulating Him will make us bigger hearted and teach us to love others as we love ourselves.

Freeman

“Where there can’t be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondservant, freeman; but Christ is all, and in all.”

There are no divisions, class structures or ungodly human social divisions in the kingdom. There is no regard for some and disregard for others. Christ is the head and Lord of all His people and no one else will trouble them. He deals with them directly and teaches and encourages them through the power of the Holy Spirit. All the constructed methods of dividing people are now defunct in the Christian church. There are no nationality issues, race issues, religious practice issues, social standing issues or relational issues. All are levelled and dealt with in Christ and all are put aside in the name of unity and the realty of Christian fellowship.

Of course these issues are still raised in Christian settings and there will always be divisions of all kinds, because of who we are as sinful people, but it ought not to be so. The role of prejudice in all social settings still raises its ugly head and we are still dedicated to making the divisions that suit our social settings. The tragedy today in our society, is that the church should be different, but it is not. The general society of human interaction is often fairer and more satisfying than the society we experience in the church setting. This should not be, but the church as an organisation has become bound up with corporate philosophy and the prejudicial thinking that the secular world has been fighting for years. Christian organisations and leaders have buried their heads in the sand and pretended that nothing is happening and that it does not apply to us. The result is a social arena with all sorts of factions and cliques that keep all outsiders out and condemns people to loneliness. People do not want to come among church people, because of the exclusivity of the environment and the condemnatory attitudes that dog the psyche of those who are involved there. The message is not proclaimed anyway and there is very little attempt made to reach out to others who are in any way different to the acceptable and set code of people behaviour.

Christ is not all-in-all, nor is that notion the prevailing culture of the people who go there and the mindset that they propagate. It is not biblical and not godly. Many are staying away and finding the Christian life challenging and lonely. There is no understanding of the people who live in the real society and who are not in our church groups. Divisions abound and all sorts of sin and wrong attitudes come in. We are so hot-housed in the church culture, we don’t even notice it. We might bear the name of Christ in saying we are “Christian” but we do not exhibit Him.

Our organisations become exclusive clubs for a limited type of person, and when they go, the group shrinks and one day the system will close its doors and die. This is how churches fold and fail. We do not grow because we are not preaching the gospel and people are not really changing and becoming like Christ, they are conforming to a social norm that is not real or realistic. If we refuse to change can we really call ourselves the churches of God? The structures in place do not meet the requirements in this verse and so we are not blessed.

As individual Christians we need to ensure our attitude is that of Christ, as spoken about in this verse. We need to regard people with the dignity of Christ and as image bearers of God and not as social outcasts, however we happen to interpret that term. There are no outsiders in Christ, only dearly beloved people who have been bought at such a great price. When we start regarding each other as such, we might start to make a difference…

Renewed

“and have put on the new man, who is being renewed in knowledge after the image of his Creator,”

The old man, or the old life of self and sin has gone, and the new life in the Spirit has come. The presence of the Holy Spirit in the life of a person makes all the difference. The old life has been crucified with Christ and the new life is now lived by the power of God. The old life is dead in the grave and the new life is risen with Christ as a new life in God.

The Christian life is a constant putting off of the old self and putting on the likeness of Christ. It is a daily walk with God, becoming more like Him and learning His will and purposes for our life. We are renewed daily in the knowledge of God, what He is like and what he requires of us.

As we live from day to day in the attitude of compliance to the Lord, we learn to be like Him and to love Him. It is not a cold copying exercise, but the heartfelt following of the example of Christ and the true love of longing to be like Him. All other loves are put to flight as we focus our mind and attention on Him and succumb to His beauty and glory.

People are made in the image of God, and though we may be fallen and fail often, we can be made new in the renewing of our minds towards the Lord.

Practices

“Do not lie to one another, since you have taken off the old self with its practices,”

To be true to the reality of life is a challenge. There are many who are try to Iive the “Christian” life, but are not true. They take to themselves a false veneer of godliness and hide behind a facade of spirituality. There are others who remain silent, hoping no one will notice them or know the truth about their life. To be sincere means we have to be honest with ourselves and face our own sins and weaknesses and deal with them. Few seem able to do so or want to do so.

The person who has become a Christian has faced their sins and confessed them to the Lord. Their life is a constant facing up and confession and change of heart and mind. This is the progress in the Christian life. Honesty in living and sincerity in what we say and do.

We may not actively tell verbal lies, but we can still be untrue, presenting ourselves as someone we are not and hiding behind a series of behaviours that we have cultivated and learned. Striving to live a holy life is the way of Christ, but it must be sincere and not just a playscript of how we have been taught to be. It is better to behave not quite rightly and be true than to play act. Admitting to yourself that you may not be quite up to the standard is a good standard and we can then face ourselves and genuinely put things right. Heartfelt repentance requires honesty with out heart and mind.

The old self of unbelief and running from what resides in our hearts, is the old way and not the Christian way. The problem with every human heart and mind is the inability to face up to our failures and start to put that away from us for real. Change starts with recognition of the need for it, and unless we have the motivation to do so, we cannot really and truly get better.

Facing up is hard to do, but if we don’t we will continue in evil practices and our life will be a living lie. Only in Christ can we be sincere in our desire and purpose to change. Only He can make us real and the genuine article of Christian faith and love. All other striving and seeking leads to death.

Beloved, it is better to be true than a simulation of Christian virtue that is false. It is better to make mistakes than to live the Stoic life and imagine you are doing God’s will. Real wisdom is learned and comes from the tutor of our souls, our Lord and God.

Shameful

“But now you also put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and shameful speaking out of your mouth.”

We can be on the Christian pathway a long time and yet fall prey to all these wrongs. We can easily be overcome, especially when we feel our needs are not being met and we are suffering. The Lord permits such things and will always supply our needs according to His riches in Christ. He will not necessarily give us all we feel we require, but will meet us at our deepest human and spiritual needs and be near to us. God will give us the power to be strong in Him and to overcome as victors in Christ.

They way we speak, even to ourselves, can be an indicator of our spiritual temperature and how godly we are living our lives. The book of James is very helpful for this task of judging our speaking and vocabulary. We can all fall into bad habits and we need the power of the Holy Spirit to keep us pure and living and speaking as we should live for the glory of God.

The Apostle Paul has another list for us here, of the hearts sins that keep us away from the heat of spiritual communion with our Father in heaven. They are all inhabitants of every human heart and we must face our part in keeping them alive in our psyche to our hurt. They must be faced and confessed and put to flight every day. No one is free from them until God makes us perfect in the coming kingdom, when Jesus will return to earth for His people and we shall be free from the taint of all sin.

The primary sin here, is the sinful anger that cascades out of us in moments of rage. We can be so full of wrath that we lose our sense of ourselves and lose control of our Christian demeanour. Our speaking also becomes angry and shameful and we present ourselves as out of control. It is easy to fall into this and to allow ourselves to be manipulated by other people and their mindset, and become taken in by their false living and lying ways. We must seek the pathway of Christ first and foremost in all our thinking and speaking and seek the control of the Spirit of God in every aspect of our living. Our pattern is Christ and not the way other people might present themselves to us.

The sins of the tongue are the fruit of the undisciplined mind and the inability to control what we think about and how we process events and what we hear. If we can control our tongues then our minds are shown to be also under control and we have the ability to speak kindly and well towards others. If there is wrong things being said, we have no part in gossip, which destroys the gossip and the person being gossiped about. It is too easy to justify ourselves in this regard, and to let ourselves off the hook and give ourselves permission to speak disparagingly about other people. We can all fall into this trap, and we seek the wisdom of the Lord as we speak with friends and family to be fair and honest and not destroy a person’s character in what we say about them.

Beloved, we guard our hearts with great jealousy for we are beloved of the Lord. Let no unwholesome talk come out of us, but all to the glory of God, which resides within us and will shine through in all we say and do.

Once

“You also once walked in those, when you lived in them;”

This section of the writing dissipates any pride we might feel as redeemed people and any pet self-righteousness we might harbour. None of us can afford to look down on others, for we were once washed. None of us deserve either the temporal or spiritual blessings that we received daily. Our lives have been bought at a great price and we enjoy the things we do by the mercy of the Lord.

As we once walked in the ways of sinfulness and pride, so we lived in them, settled and secure in our godlessness and world-orientated desires. We had no inclination towards God or any desires after His holy ways, but sought only our own pathway and wants. Our will was in no way compliant with God’s will and we walked blindly in the ways of this fallen world, seeking only the things we needed for happiness and personal fulfilment.

But we were rescued from this collision course with the wrath of God and made new in the renewing of our minds and will, so that we became new creations in Christ. This incredible work of salvation was not of our instigation or even desire. It is the work of God in the human heart. We do not now live as Christians after the pattern of this world, but after righteousness, because we have been changed by God. We cannot lay my claim to goodness of our own, but only what is imputed to us in Christ. We are made righteous because of His righteousness.

We walk now in humility and gratefulness for the mercy of God and the salvation which has been freely bestowed on us. We are debtors to mercy and now live our lives through through the power of the Holy Spirit who resides within and are saved by the grace of God. Only when we recognise and confess this do we please the Lord. All other thoughts are self-seeking and proud.

“Don’t be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor male prostitutes, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor slanderers, nor extortioners, will inherit the Kingdom of God. Such were some of you, but you were washed. But you were sanctified. But you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and in the Spirit of our God.”

1 Corinthians 6:9-11

None of these sinful people will be in heaven, except they are washed clean. There is no other salvation and Jesus is the only Saviour. Beloved, we must humble ourselves and remember who we once were, and rejoice at what we have been made.

Wrath

“for which things’ sake the wrath of God comes on the children of disobedience.”

These sins that Paul is outlining are the habit and mindset of the disobedient. Those who indulge in them will suffer the full effects of the wrath of God. His wrath is poured out on the wicked, who break His commands and deliberately walk in the ways of the flesh, and not after the heart of God.

We play with the possibility of eternal punishment to our own folly. We disbelieve and cross our fingers that it is not true, playing havoc with our souls and missing the heights of delight. God’s love reigns supreme and will deliver us from all evil and the effects of it on our future. Why do we turn away and embrace the pathway of foolishness and loss?

Why disobey the holy one who loves us beyond measure and will never leave us helpless and hopeless. His way is in the heavens and He is willing and able to take us there.

The wrath of God is something to be avoided at all costs, for it is eternal and will not be deflected from the verdict of true justice. The final judgment will show the full weight of the consequences of breaking the law of God on all who refuse Him and refuse to believe. Only those who shelter in the refuge of the cross of Christ will be saved for that wrath, for we are all “children of disobedience” in our natural inclination. The only salvation is in Christ and in Him alone.

Idolatry

“Put to death therefore your members which are on the earth: sexual immorality, uncleanness, depraved passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry;”

Because of what Paul is saying about Christ, His appearing and our future glorified life with Him, we should put away all sinful lifestyle choices. We shut the door on our fleshly desires and put on the spiritual desires of Christ. The physical part of us must die to the desires of self, and be given as a sacrifice of praise to the Saviour and Lord, as He sacrificed Himself for us and gave Himself to save us from certain death. Our souls need to be saved from the clinging sins that would dull down the beauty of spiritual life and drag us into darkness. We offer ourselves as living sacrifices to God which is our spiritual worship.

“I urge you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service.”

Romans 12:1

Paul gives us a list to direct our efforts into the following of the command.

Sexual immorality must be put to the death in our minds and bodies. We turn away from feeding the flesh and seeking sexual gratification. It starts in the minds and the body follows. If our mind is set on Christ we will not succumb to the desires of the body and our cravings will cease and we will be kept pure. God gave marriage as the remedy for this set of sins and the chaste relationship of one man and one woman, living together in harmony in every part of their lives.

To live a clean life is to live to God and put away all the cravings of the fleshly life and the pursuit of ungodly ways. It means living in the power of the Spirit of God and not depending on any outside source for satisfaction. Staying away from all substance abuse, even our food and drink, and living temporal lives for God.

All depravity of every kind is far away from the mind of the Christian. We are careful what we watch and the material we put into our minds that would sully the purity of the Spirit and lead us away from the clean life lived for God.

All the range of evil desires will then be kept at bay and we will follow the Lord in our lifestyle and in every choice that we must make. Our desires will be for the ways of God and not after the evil walk of the people who are caught up in this world. Our choices will be centred on the reality of the coming kingdom and the glory that will be revealed when this present life is over. God will make all things new and put all that is wrong to flight and make it right.

All our desire will be for the will of God and not to possess the goods of this life, seeking satisfaction in this life and not in God, which is the root of covetousness. All these considerations are idolatry and display a general hunger for the life on earth and not the spiritual life that God require or offers to us. We can be altogether too caught up with the things of this life and lose out on spiritual blessings. The flesh wars against the soul, and we must fight its effect and desires, which will one day pass away.

Glory

“When Christ, our life, is revealed, then you will also be revealed with him in glory.”

Here in this verse we have the essence of the Book of Revelation. It is the comfort of the saints of God in the midst of a crooked and perverse world.

Christ Jesus has been revealed in human form at the incarnation, but one day will be fully revealed and appear in all His glory as the Lord of the worlds and every living being. Every knee will bow to Him and all glory will be His. All those who are safe in His keeping and sheltering under His holy rule will be kept safe and will be revealed in His glory also.

Do not worry about being a person of no significance. You are a daughter or a son of the eternal kingdom and one day the Lord will put everything right. One day the skies will burst open and the Son will shine and we will not look back. The last battle will be over in an instant and the majesty of the Lord Jesus will be seen.

What a happy day that will be for every saint of God. The wrongs will melt away into the light of the kingdom come and every battle with self and sin will be finally over. We shall enter our eternal inheritance with great joy and the power of the Spirit of God will indwell us fully and fill our who souls with light. The kingdom will come it all its power and splendour and we shall reign with Christ forever. These facts ought to make a difference in our lives now, as we look forward to that time of complete renewal, when all the promises of God will be fully honoured.

We shall see our Saviour and our eternal life will begin in Him. We can enter into that reality now in the power of the Holy Spirit and know the joy of the Lord. This is our eternal destiny. Beloved, we lift our eyes off the here and now, the battles, the heartache and the disappointments and know the love of God burning in our hearts. God will bring all things to full fruition for the good and blessing of His people.

“We know that the Son of God has come, and has given us an understanding, that we know him who is true, and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.”

1 John 5:20

Daughters of the Kingdom

Women who glorify God