2002-10-03
Good Morning Treasured Readers,
Our loving Abba cares so deeply for us that He has much to say about the issue of forgiveness in our lives. He says these things through not only the OT prophets, but the writers of the NT and especially His own Son. Remember, that one of God's greatest goals is to see as many people as possible repent, come to faith in Christ, and be sanctified, so that they can gain eternal life with Him. The picture of a great eagle drawing its nestlings to its breast for love and protection comes to mind. To that end, God is counting on we who have come to faith already to share that faith with others. This can't be done effectively until we deal with issues like forgiveness in our lives. When we refuse to be forgiving, it serves as a block to the production of spiritual fruit.
The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant in MT 18: 21-35 is a powerful lesson and revelation of God's will for us. It opens with Peter asking a key question. MT 18:21-22, "Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, 'Lord, if my brother keeps on sinning against me, how many times do I have to forgive him? Seven times?' 'No, not seven times,' answered Jesus, 'but seventy times seven.'" Obeying this command flies in the face of our natural impatience and desire to strike out in anger, doesn't it? And yet, patience in this situation is God's will. If we ask why and take the time to think about it, the reason for it becomes apparent. Few humans correct long-standing problem behaviors the first time around. It takes time to whittle away the years of a well worn habit pattern and replace it with appropriate, godly behavior. If we examine our own lives, I have little doubt that we can find just such examples in them. God has given mankind since the time of the original sin said to be committed sometime over 4000 years ago to expunge sin from their lives, and He is still waiting. He won't wait forever, but His patience and compassion is a great example to us.
MT 18: 23-34 is the story Christ tells about a servant who owed a king millions of dollars. The king was going to sell him and his family into slavery, but the servant (on his knees) begged the king to be patient with him and promised to pay back all of his debt. The king felt sorry for him, so he forgave the debt and let the servant go. That same servant encountered another who owed him only a few dollars. He commanded the second servant to pay him back, grabbed him and began choking him. When the second servant begged for mercy and patience, the first one didn't grant them. Instead, he had him thrown into jail until he paid his debt. Observers of all of this informed the king what the first servant had done. The king was justifiably angry and in (33) said, "You should have had mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you." The first servant was then thrown in jail until he could repay his debt. MT 18: 35, "And Jesus concluded, 'That is how My Father in heaven will treat every one of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.'" As can be seen, this is the same consistent lesson we learn through Paul from EPH 4: 32, "Instead, be kind and tender-hearted to one another, and forgive one another, as God has forgiven you through Christ."
I would like to share two short stories about forgiveness that have greatly impacted my life. Corrie Ten Boom was a Dutch Christian who helped Jews to escape from Nazi tyranny and cruelty. She was eventually placed for a time in a concentration camp and separated permanently from her family. She remembered the cruel Gestappo officer who was in charge of her at the camp. After the war was over, Corrie was released and eventually spent the rest of her life spreading her faith all over the world. She came to live in the US. Many years later when she was elderly, she attended a church service in FL. A new member was being admitted to the congregation that week, a person she would never forget-that same former Nazi Gestappo officer. The others, who knew nothing about who this person had been in Corrie's life, asked her to participate in personally welcoming this man. It took all the courage and faith that Corrie could muster, but she did it. He recognized her immediately and tears began to stream from his eyes. He knew what it took for her to engage in this act of forgiveness and expressed the depth of his newly found faith in Christ.
The other story is more personal. As many of you know, I lost a part of my own family in the Holocaust. I was raised in traditional Judiaism before recognizing Christ is the Messiah and becoming a Messianic Jew. My childhood was filled with reminders, both at home and in the shule where my family worshipped, of the horrors of the Holocaust and the cruelty of the Nazis. I grew up being afraid of people with German accents, a childish response to all of this, which as an adult I had to correct. First I had to realize that all Germans are not Nazis, and that many of them feel shame for what the Nazis did. Secondly, I had to reach deep in my heart to truly forgive. The end of this problem happened for me only two years ago when Rosemarie and Tylo Claussen came to visit our congregation. Rosemarie is Hitler's goddaughter, who told her own story of persecution at the hand of the Nazis, despite this relationship. Her father had been one of Hitler's generals, who was later killed by the regime. Her story of eventual forgiveness reached down to the deepest part of my soul. After 55 years of silence about this, Rosemarie turned her anger over the Lord-the only real Source of peace available. Today she and Tylo run the Joshuamission Ministry, which serves the Lord and spreads the Gospel. That night, Rosemarie put her hands on me in prayer along with one other Messianic Jew in our congregation, and we gave up the last vestiges of our anger to Jesus. God calls each of us to reflect on the condition of forgiveness in our own lives. If there is anger remaining, we are called upon to place this burden on Christ's ample shoulders.
PRAYER: O Lord, there are times when it takes us years, even the better part of a lifetime, to come to the realization of just how destructive harboring anger is. We can't help but ask the question: Why do You allow such atrocities as the Holocaust to happen? The question is not asked disrespectfully, but instead, to better understand Your perspective. While You have not fully answered it now to our satisfaction, we have learned that sometimes lives are sacrificed to evil, so that something good can happen. In that case, it is the establishment of the Israel and the end of the second dyaspora. The human toll and heartfelt loss would cause us to level our anger at You, if our natural selves were in control. But You bless us with faith and the discernment to know that it is Satan who causes the trouble, not You-so that natural self-directed anger is wrongful. IS 55: 8-9 reminds us that only You are omniscient, Your ways are higher than ours, and we can't understand everything You know. That calls upon us to have faith and to know from our study of Your word that You are always righteous. JER 29: 11-13 told the Jewish people that You have no plan to bring them disaster, only prosperity. That message is also directed at us, believers suffering the fiery arrows Satan sends. RO 8: 18 puts the real perspective on this, "I consider that what we suffer at this present time cannot be compared at all with the glory that is going to be revealed to us." We place our trust in You, Dearest Abba, and we won't forget or disobey Christ's words in MT 18: 22 to forgive with patience. You give us the peace that goes beyond human understanding when we obey You. We offer our heartfelt thanks for that and praise for the righteous and wise God that You are. We humbly confess our sins and pledge You our trust, obedience, worship, adoration, loyalty, diligence, glory, honor, praise and thanksgiving. In Christ's name, amen.
Tomorrow, I am led to write about what God has to say at the times when Satan gains a stronghold in our lives. Only a God Who loves each of His children enormously would have provided His Son to serve a ministry to teach forgiveness, die on the cross for us, and be raised again, so that we could have the opportunity for eternal life with Him. People like Corrie Ten Boom and myself would never have been given the opportunity to finally forgive, and thus, rid ourselves of a long-standing block to efficiently producing spiritual fruit in our lives were it not for that love. Our loving Abba can be trusted to see to it that Satan will eventually be put to spiritual death in the lake of fire and sulfur. We are honored and blessed by the love He shows us every day. Peter and I send you our love too.
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn