Sometimes when you sin and ask for forgiveness from the Lord, you aren’t fully prepared for His mercy. What I mean is that, we’re so used to being judged and scrutinized and pointed at by others when we mess up, that it’s hard to believe that a perfect God would be willing to forgive us when we fall short. It's just difficult to comprehend. And even more, it’s hard to embrace grace and mercy when we ourselves don’t show grace and mercy to others.
Yesterday I was struggling to receive forgiveness from God for something that I did. I was bitter and disappointed in myself, and truthfully, I knew I didn’t deserve a second chance. And I'm just saying, if I were God, I would certainly be fed up with me by now. But thankfully God operates with mercy and grace. To put it plainly, mercy is God holding back the punishment I do deserve for being sinful and grace is God giving me the second chance that I don’t deserve. Just precious gifts from a really good God.
And as I was thinking about why it was so hard for me to receive mercy from such a beautiful and awesome God… it actually boiled down to the fact that I struggle to show mercy to others as I should. When I don’t forgive others for their mistakes and hold grudges against them it begins to make me doubt whether God will actually forgive to me completely.
This is what I mean. Check out this pattern: 1) Somebody does something to hurt my feelings (half the time without even knowing it). 2) I'm hurt, but I try to act like I'm not. 3) Sooner or later I think back to what was said or done to me, and I become upset and/or bitter about it. 4) Sooner or later (probably sooner) I do something to offend God. 5) I recognize it and sincerely ask God for forgiveness. 6) I recognize that I'm forgiven, but it doesn't "feel" like it. 7) I struggle with forgiving myself and truly comprehending God's forgiveness.
I like to think that I don’t hold grudges or become bitter over situations with people, but that’s really not the case. If someone really hurts me, it’s hard for me to let it go. I have the free will to replay the offense over and over in my head until I’m bitter and upset, and eventually feel justified in feeling that way. Now I'm not saying that this happens all the time but it has definitely happened before. And it's wrong. No excuses. Forsaking others of forgiveness is just plain wrong. And on top of that it's the fact that I don't forgive someone else for their wrongdoing that prevents me from being ready to receive forgiveness from God and from myself for my wrongdoing.
Jesus definitely saw a big connection between us forgiving one another and Him forgiving us. Just after He recites the Lord’s prayer, He says, “For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.” – Matthew 6:14 (NIV)
And though that seems like quite the conditional statement, I think Jesus is really trying to teach us the importance of forgiving others. Forgiveness that is based on love is really important to God. That's what He's all about. By asking us to forgive others, Jesus just wants us to be willing to show others mercy through Him just as He desires to show mercy to us personally.
I should be so ridiculously willing to forgive those who wrong me. Not just because God promises to forgive me if I do so, but because it should be heartfelt. I know how much wrong I’ve done, in public and in secret, to hurt others and to hurt my God. So I shouldn’t expect anyone else to behave perfectly when I haven’t. And I know that we’re all human. And every now and then somebody’s gonna do something that’s, well, human-like. That’s just reality. So when I choose to love someone despite what they've done, I can really feel God helping me through that process, and it's an awesome thing.
So I’m beginning to see that me forgiving others is really connected to how I feel about God’s desire to forgive me of my own mistakes. Because without making a commitment to showing mercy in my everyday life, mercy can really feel like an outlandish concept. But when I desire to be forgiving as my Father in heaven is, and I allow Him to give me the strength and courage to forgive as I should, mercy becomes real to me again. He uses instances and relationships in my life to help me put to practice what He teaches me – that He loves grace and mercy and loves to express it through me. And it’s then that I am encouraged and reminded that my God truly does desire to pick me up when I fall, dust me off and encourage me to keep running this race.
No comments:
Post a Comment