Forgiveness, the Empathy of God

God’s empathy for a fallen humankind, the sending of a Messiah to save, being God’s instrument of forgiveness, demonstrates the cosmic understanding that was and is and always will be there.  God understands, accepts, and forgives our imperfection.

Our challenge is to accept our own and others’ imperfections,
and to empathise for ourselves and others when we get it wrong.

~

Compassion is God’s nature, and the practical outworking of compassion is empathy.  Empathy is understanding as if the person empathising KNOWS what the other person experiences.  When we KNOW what the other faces, we cannot condemn them.

Empathy is therefore kind, compassionate, understanding, gentle, patient.  Empathy is thoroughly good, and given that goodness is the presentation of love, empathy is the practice of love.

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Humankind’s empathy for itself, a gift of forgiveness that heals not only those who have been hurt but offers hope to those who would turn from their sin, is the second greatest gift one human being can offer another or receive from another.

The greatest gift anyone can receive is to receive God’s empathy in the terms of the experienced forgiveness, breeding peace, hope, and joy, that reigns as salvation from eternity to eternity.  In Jesus’ name.

When one has received such a gift—and it is always there for all, a person only need ask—that person enters a journey of learning God’s empathy as a way of worshipping God, not least by loving others as God has loved us all.  This is experiencing God!

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Great personal blessing is experienced in authentically empathising for another person.

When we feel for another person as they feel, it not only lightens our own load, but we are also granted a heart that is after God’s own heart—seeing as God sees, feeling as God feels.  This can only be received as a gift, but to receive the gift we must want it, we must make a place for it, we must make room, and we must nurture such a gift, also.

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It’s happened more than once where I’ve been in a conversation with someone, and they trust me enough to open up.  “Please don’t judge me when I tell you something about myself.”  Then there is a characteristic pause, perhaps a big deep metaphorical breath, and then the liminal space of trust that goes into operation.

So many people feel judged before they even open their mouths.

So many feel they are not good enough even for God.

Before they even contemplate sharing with another person, many people get incredibly anxious that they’re about to be misunderstood, criticised, judged, condemned.

Whenever we are vulnerable to another person’s acceptance, maybe it’s a part of ourselves that we are not proud of, or it could even be something nobody’s ever enquired about, the biggest barrier to sharing can be our own reticence.

We expect judgement, not empathy.

But God empathises.

Christians who follow their Lord empathise.

None of us has ever lived even a day anywhere close to perfection.

Many victims of abuse suffer judgement because they have never experienced anyone say to them, “I believe you.”  They have never had anyone simply sit with them and say, “Please trust me... allow me to hold this space for you.”  They are more accustomed to being judged and condemned for not stopping what was out of their control.  People are far less accustomed to being understood and empathised with.

Imagine God saying, “I believe you because I saw it.”

Imagine hearing, “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have summoned you by name; you are mine.”
—Isaiah 43:1

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There are times in all our lives where we judge without having all the information at hand—when we fail the love of empathy for another.  We often fall for what’s called dualistic thinking, where we judge “right or wrong” and “good or bad” and such judgement has no love of the deeper understanding of empathy about it.  Such judging thinking does not bear the curiosity needed to withhold judgement.

It’s because we are a mess with unconscious biases.

Empathy requires honest introspection and true self-awareness.

The prayer of Psalm 139:23-24 is powerful
to liberate us from our judgement:

“Search ME, God, and know MY heart;
test me and know MY anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in ME,
and lead ME in the way everlasting.”
(Pronouns emphasised as CAPS)

We are all capable of getting it wrong and being harsh about someone else’s experience—especially when their experience runs cross grain against ours.

The last person we empathise with is the person who has hurt us, but perhaps we have also hurt them, so forgiving each other can seem a bridge too far for both.

Think about it for a moment.  When we can empathise for another person, which is to step inside THEIR reality and feel as if we ourselves were them, we find it far easier to understand and therefore forgive, and peace, hope, and joy are the signs of our redemption.

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There’s so much fear and even dread experienced when we are conditioned by others’ judgement.  That conditioning leaves us in a state of expectation for the worst.  Little wonder people vacillate between the extremes of rallying against the abuse done to them, self-condemnation, and reactive abuse.  That whole process is exhausting mentally, emotionally, and spiritually and it saps us at a soul level.

We don’t realise how insidious it is until we are caught in the cycle of injustice.

Truly, we can live our whole life thinking things about “victims” and then through the twist of events, and cruel irony, we become one.  Suddenly, we are in a place where we are consumed by injustice when not long ago we would not be caught in “victimhood” for anything.  And to find ourselves in such a place means it can be a huge battle to forgive.

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The opportunity we all have if we want to grow in life is to engage our senses in the curiosity of empathy for others.  We cannot grow if we cannot give.  It is in the giving that we receive, and only by giving without seeking to receive anything.  Such space for empathy, understanding, and love is a gift that comes in forgiving, which takes great faith.

The more we live like this, 
the less we judge, 
the more our own lives blossom and flourish.
And this is power for others in our orbit of influence.

~

Empathy expands our humanity, but judgement reveals entitlement.

Empathy is an expanded vision, beyond oneself.

Judgement is a constricted vision often borne of ignorance.

~

Our world needs more Christian love borne of empathy to create understanding and positive change in our society’s culture.  Love is a force that will transform the world, yet we battle all our lives against the forces of judgement and condemnation that keep people in bondage.

Our world needs individual human beings who receive the empathy of God in their own lives and portray this empathy so it flows into others’ lives.  These are filled by the Spirit to overflow into others’ lives.  We are to be filled with love so we can overflow with love.

We cannot give what we have not first received.

Forgiveness, the Humility of God

The humility of God is this: although God does not need us, we were created for the world, and the world is given to us, and no matter how much we please or displease God—saved or unsaved—we are never too far from divine fellowship.  Though God is infinitely above us, WE are created in God’s own image.  God shares with humanity what humanity was designed to share in.  God shares with us as if we are equals though we are NOT equals.  Most of all, God created us in love, and though we are fallen, God in Jesus humbled himself to come to us and to redeem us.  Even more, the Spirit of the Lord pursues us all our lives with divine peacemaking love that humanity cannot fathom and yet is blessed to emulate.  This is just a few snippets of the humility of God.

It is to THIS humility each of us is called.

The humility of God means 
we cannot “please” God to save ourselves, 
and our humility will attest to this fact.

~

Humility heralds the truth of an 
equalising justice that is from God.

Humility is an inherent equality.

We are to champion this humility.

HUMILITY OF INHERENT EQUALITY

Being that none of us is any better than anyone else, for we are ALL created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27), the only time we find ourselves enemies with others in our spirit is when they see themselves as superior or entitled, by person, by position, by privilege, by performance—especially this latter one by partiality.  The opposite is also true.  When we act superior or entitled, we act as if we are better—and we are NOT—and this enmity against others and before God.

Again, we are ALL eternally equal before God.

By hyperbole, with enormous rhetorical intention, Jesus taught this equality in the “kingdom of heaven” in Matthew 11:11,

“Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”

When I read this verse, I believe Jesus is saying that ALL are equal in the kingdom of heaven.  It inverts the concept of “greatness” in a way that cannot be otherwise understood by mortals.  The way Jesus communicates here and elsewhere subverts the confidence of those with so-called “worldly wisdom,” especially the self-appointed.

Jesus levels the playing field; 
“... knowledge puffs up while love builds up”
—1 Corinthians 8:1b.

Jesus proclaims an upside-down kingdom where “the least of these” are greatest (Matthew 25:40, 45), where those who exalt themselves are humbled, yet those who humble themselves are exalted (Luke 14:11), and those in humble circumstances have high position (James 1:9).

Jesus spoke in hyperbole for many reasons, not least to communicate that God cannot be mastered.  The test for our own hearts is whether we think we can match God.  A confirmation of our own hearts is how we feel about the person who thinks they can match God.  We naturally resist those who appear to prosper in their sinful pride.  Prospering in sinful pride is an anomaly, however, and God will rebuke it and correct it.

Forgiveness leaves another person’s sinful pride with God, 
as we give over our sinful pride of being threatened for theirs.

~

The test of forgiveness is this.  We can understand why it is easy to forgive the repentant person; why there is no excuse not to.  We can understand why it is harder to forgive the unrepentant person; why a felt injustice tempts a person to be embittered.  We can rejoice when forgiveness is easier.  We can reconcile that an unrepentant person needs our prayers; for them, that they don’t bring condemnation on themselves by continuing to fail love and resist God, and that they don’t continue to exasperate those they have harmed.

Part of our prayers is the heart that says, “I forgive the wantonness of this person who is behaving like a fool, understanding that—as EQUALS—I, too, behave like a fool at times.  Lord, open the eyes of this person’s heart so they may repent and receive Your acquittal as much as I pray that you keep the eyes of MY heart open.”  (See Psalm 139:23-24, an Awareness Prayer.)

We should hope others would pray this for us when we have shortness of spiritual insight.  That’s the humility we are invited to exhibit.  We ought not to forget how readily we, ourselves, miss the mark. Such continual remembering of this fact is a sign of humility.

HUMILITY AND FORGIVENESS OF BIBLE CHARACTERS

Joseph accepted the testing that resulted from his youthful bragging that was revealed as antagonising his brothers’ skulduggery (Genesis 37) and he responded wisely and humbly.  He was justified and positioned to forgive twenty-four years after he had been thrown into that pit and pronounced as dead to his father by his brothers.  Working within the mandate of God’s providence, Joseph learned, character-crafted humility held open the possibility for reconciliation with his brothers.

Job was a righteous man, but like Paul and everyone else, barring Jesus, he was not perfect.  Like us, at least most of the time, he reviled the testing.  Like Joseph, the purpose in the testing was to refine Job in humility—so he could understand and thereby accept who God IS.  A humbled, repentant Job, with no case against anyone—the personification of humility and forgiveness—is right before God in the end.

Jeremiah was harangued as most if not all truthtellers are.  Like Job, though he had done little wrong other than to utter the truth, the testing this faithful prophet endured ultimately made him a better, humbler person.

Paul struggled with the “thorn in his side,” “the messenger of Satan” (notice the parallel with Job chapters 1-2?).  Yet, he was not diminished by his weakness.  On the contrary, his weakness refined him.  It focused Paul’s countenance on Christ.  Weakness enabled Paul to draw on the strength of God bestowed in humility.  Though he contended with the church at Corinth, chastising them in loving discipline, the Corinthians were still his spiritual children.

And finally...

Jesus experienced testing not for the purpose of refinement, but of example—to show an ailing humanity HOW it is to live.  Jesus’ humble reliance on the Father was implicit in WHO Jesus is.  Coupling “being in very nature God” with “made himself nothing” on the cross (Philippians 2:6-8), Jesus is the author and perfecter of humility.

INSIGHT IS THE KEY TO HUMILITY AND FORGIVENESS

The key temptations in life get under our guard and hurt and then harden our hearts.  Hardness of heart leads to an incapacity to forgive.  The worst of it is an absolute loss of insight—that inability to see how merciful God has been with us.

But,

... insight is about seeing one’s truth.

Seeing one’s truth as it really is—as we ARE and as we are to, and with, others—and being honest about it, is how I would define insight.  The term “insight” is literally about having true sight, the ability to SEE, IN ourselves.  It is the key to both humility and forgiveness.

Insight, I would argue, is not only the key ingredient in what we would call “mental health,” it is also the key feature of humility and forgiveness in terms of self-accountability.  It is the key to being able to SEE the log in our own eye (Matthew 7:3-5), “throw[ing] off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles” (Hebrews 12:1), and to act accordingly in repentance.

Thankfully, the conviction of the Holy Spirit 
motivates us to commit insight to action.

Doing what is right, no matter what it costs, relies on such insight to inspire conviction that sees us ACT on truth so that we would love our neighbour to the extent of forgiveness.

Insight, then, as the key feature of humility and forgiveness, leads to transformation and relational miracles, not least within us.  With insight we embody hope for reconciliation.

REPENTANCE – THE SIGN, EVIDENCE, FRUIT OF HUMILITY

The capacity for repentance is the evidence and a fruit 
of both humility and salvation.

Humility is a character trait.
Salvation, once claimed, is an eternal disposition and destination.

Though nothing else needs be done to be saved than BELIEVE—Jesus fulfilling the prophecies of the Messiah, the life and ministry of Jesus, the cross, the burial, the resurrection, the ascension, the coming and the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and what these all mean in our lives—the sign, evidence, and fruit of humility is a soul’s declaration that salvation took place, and that LIFE exists in us.

The capacity for repentance is the clearest evidence 
that Christ is Lord in the individual.

It is the capacity for truth, for insight, to make peace, 
for transformation and eternal life.

Not only is repentance a sign, evidence, and a fruit of transformation and eternal life in a person, such humility sees to it that transformation ripples out into others’ lives.  These are nothing less than miracles in the abundant life Jesus promised would take hold in our lives.

The humble press in on forgiveness, but the conceited resist inquiry.
Humility is the bedrock of repentance.  

A heart receptive to repentance is what brings humbling about, 
and such humbling is central to forgiveness.

As we are made in the image of God who has the humility to forgive,
we also are made to emulate God’s humility, be humble, and forgive.

Blessed is the person who walks humbly with their God (Micah 6:8).

Forgiveness, the Patience of God

Patience—the patience of God—is a gift God offers to humankind.  Being a gift, it is FREE.  It costs nothing to claim it, and it isn’t even hard to claim.

But we must be WILLING to receive it.

It requires surrender at one level and commitment on another.  It requires us to go against the flow of our carnal selves, and against the ebb of our self-sufficiency, and to choose instead to live in the lap of the will of God—which seems hard, but it is actually the easiest of things from the point of view of surrender and commitment.  That’s when it becomes hard—because unless we are surrendered and committed, we don’t get it.

In and of itself, patience as a gift is first a choice 
to act patiently, one moment at a time.
What motivates the choice that becomes 
an action is another thing entirely.

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Patience is good for us because it is good for others, 
and because it is good for others and therefore us, 
we will ALL thrive and grow 
when we are able to demonstrate patience.

Think about it, patience is such a wonderful gift to receive.  It is the very exemplification of grace.  And this heralds the fact and theology of God’s grace.  If another person’s patience is a wonderful grace to receive, think about the gift of salvation—God’s eternal patience—expressed as a plan, conceived from before the beginning of time.

Ah, SALVATION, the gravity and the gift of salvation.

We take our salvation for granted to our detriment, yet when we are grateful for it, the simplest and most powerful of blessings, our lives are enhanced and transformed, and we tap into patience for ourselves and others ever more.  It really is very simple and this patience we tap into as if it were on tap.  Like with all things of God, the depths of goodness can neither be plumbed nor fathomed.

And it is this patience that augments the grace of forgiveness.

TWO TYPES OF PATIENCE – EASY & HARD

Just to be clear, there are what I see to be two types of patience, one that is hard and one that is easy.  The hard patience we’ve all experienced when we’ve earnestly sought to be patient.  It’s when we MUST be patient and we choose to be patient, a thing of great discipline.  It’s the type where patience is wisdom, a real character competency.

The easy patience is more a gift of God, 
and it is to be nurtured 
through surrender and commitment.

Easy patience is when we find that our faith fortified by the Holy Spirit to such an extent that there is no sign of anger that might have previously been there.  When we have been graced with this type of easy patience, we cannot explain it, but it is so easy—the truest of gifts.

Hard patience is the typical kind that we experience a lot in our more carnal existence in life.  The truth is this is the most common patience.  It is patience despite the presence of frustration and anger.  It is the overcoming of these.  It is the type of patience where we grit our teeth to get through, choosing joy despite hardship.  It is the type of patience that has the appearance of patience without being a patience gifted to us as easy patience is.  But it is still a good form of Christian patience, and this kind of patience is emblematic of most seasons of our lives if we are honest.

True patience, therefore, is easy patience—the patience of God.  A forgiving patience.  Easy patience—or holy patience—is the patience of Jesus, who is Perfect Patience.

JESUS IS PERFECT PATIENCE

Jesus was called “Perfect Patience” by early church father, Cyprian of Carthage (210–258), not least by his approach with Judas Iscariot and Saul who became Paul, both of whom we can relate with.  By this Cyprian connects patience with both wisdom and humility, but not in common, worldly ways that are ‘perfectible’.

The wisdom and humility of Christ is in knowing that all is well as all ends well—which is applied as the prophetic nature of practical faith.  Hebrews 11:1 puts it well: “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.”

As easy patience can only come from a full unequivocal momentary willing surrender to God, by the unconditional acceptance of the uncontrollable purposes of life, such a surrender equips the person with easy patience because nothing—yes, absolutely nothing—is coveted.  There is no greed, nor envy, nor jealousy, nor lust, nor anger.  There is no pride.  No sin, whatsoever.  As mere human beings, this can only be mastered one moment at a time.

In this, the easy patience is exemplified in us, as Jesus was and is and ever will be, by the Holy Spirit, Perfect Patience.

PATIENCE, WHAT IS IT IF NOT FOR THE FRUIT OF FORGIVENESS?

The real blessing that comes from forgiveness is patience for self, for others, for life.

This is because within patience is the peace of a heart that is right with God and therefore life, and this is the case because forgiveness is right—right before God, right for us, right for others—and when we do what is right, we enjoy peace as a result.

This is an incredible reality of BEING to live, as to experience.

This is the pinnacle of Christian faith, to be a living, breathing testimony of the grace of God.  It is what it means to live in the fullness of eternity right here on earth—“on earth as it is in heaven.”  It does not mean that the carnal nature has been perfectly transcended, but the blessed peace that comes from patience as the fruit of forgiveness is a reward for having faith sufficient to forgive. This is because we have trusted the Word of God to the extent of forgiving in advance of the blessing promised because it is the right thing to do.

WHAT DOES PATIENCE AS FORGIVENESS LOOK LIKE?

Both the means and the end transcending the means, patience is something that enables forgiveness, and it is the blessing that comes from forgiveness.

Patience and forgiveness are hence intertwined and interdependent.  The former is the blessing promised from forgiveness, but it is also required input to forgive.  Patience will help with forgiveness as forgiveness will also help with patience.  And because patience mitigates anger it promotes peace and wellbeing, and we should all want it.

Patience humbles us to acknowledge we must do 
what we cannot do without God.

Whenever we have struggled to forgive, perhaps we have also struggled to comprehend the interchangeability and blessedness of patience.  Patience mitigates the pride that stifles forgiveness.

THE MOTIVE FOR PATIENCE

“What’s in it for me?”  It’s an ever-relevant question.  It speaks to the concept of motivation. Motivation is humanity’s drive to do what inspires it to do.  So, what inspires patience?  What makes patience important to do?

Centrally, patience must be about overcoming our desire and need of comfort.  Surrender our insistence that we be comforted, and everything we truly need (which is little) will be granted to us, such is the spirit and pledge of Matthew 6:33.

Being that patience is a perfect way to express and operationalise forgiveness, given that it is a key fruit of forgiveness, and given that forgiveness is THE way to access peace in our lives, that ought to be sufficient motive to endeavour upon the mastery of patience.

It is worth losing our lives to save them in Jesus’ name through a patience that masters every situation because there are too many petty situations we lose our patience for.  And from this perspective all situations and gains are petty compared with the prize of patience.

Think about it.  If we were able to always maintain our patience we would have constant access to peace, and we would be the safest and most trustworthy of persons.  Obedient to God, great for others!

Such patience is full of integrity and humility,
it mirrors the faithfulness of God.
~
It is indeed what God is calling us to.

So the motive for patience is a life wisely lived, for there is hardly a wiser way to live life than to agree to live for patience.  And think about that from an endpoint of view.  To achieve such patience there must be the truest and rightest setting for what is important in life.

The end justifies the means—as a faithful promise
—and—by faith—the means produces the end.

The patience of God is a patience to emulate.  As God is slow to anger and abounding in love, we are to grow into such a patience that others remark about the peace we have.  It is blessed to be a blessing, and in this context, this is no cliché.  It is the power of God, the power of forgiveness, that indwells it.

So, Lord, bless the reader to imbibe 
such a mission for Your patience,
in augmenting Your forgiveness in their lives.

Forgiveness, the Love of God

If not for love, we would not exist.  Love brought us into being, love made us free for a free will.  Love made a way for us to return to God having failed love.  And love sustains us, eternally.

God’s love.  For God is love.

God’s love sustains us,
whether we acknowledge it or not.

God’s love is intricately woven into all creation, from every nuance of intelligent design to the concept of the family unit, to the purpose of love in procreation, to the fact that all creatures need love, to the justice we cry out for in all courses of life, right back to the concept of creation itself.  Why in the world is there this thing called “life”?  It’s because of love.  It’s because of God.  Existence is the actual proof.

But there is a chasm between God’s original design in the perfection of love and our lived reality of life where we endure lives often riddled with puzzling complexities and toxic relational situations.  When love blesses, does no harm, and brings life, the actuality of life on earth is that harms are done so routinely as to make it seem like love’s tapestry is negated in and over creation.  And, no matter how much we are loved and reciprocate in the loving, we all contribute to the dysfunction.

Having failed God and life and just about everybody else in our lives we all need a cosmic second chance and that second chance is a given through God in Christ, which is to be the template for OUR lives.  How do we give a relationship a second chance—in case that second chance is warranted?  We give it a chance to be forgiven.  

To paraphrase C.S. Lewis,
we forgive the “unforgivable” because we 
ourselves have been forgiven the unforgivable.

As we honour the truth through the humility of seeing our sin, we are given the keys to life as we see ourselves as no better than others.  God’s love shows us this in the cosmic forgiveness we have received.  To the glory of God’s name, we all have the same condition as everyone else.

THE INTERDEPENDENCE OF LOVE AND TRUST

Love compels a person to the wisdom of trust.  Forgiveness is the wisdom of trust.  We must trust God to truly forgive, making forgiveness one of discipleship’s most important performance indicators.  Those who take their faith seriously, seriously trust God to the extent of understanding and appreciating the value of the mercy that has been extended to them as an individual.  It motivates behaviours of reciprocity because God has been so good to us.

In trusting God, a door is opened to us that opens up to us access to a power we can only receive through an iron clad trust of God.  God must be our god, our only god, and this pure allegiance can only be lived one moment at a time.  We march to God’s tune alone when we extend the mercy God’s extended to us to others, each and every time.

Hard as it is to write, we cannot love if we cannot trust, because love implies and requires trust.  And this is the most direct reason why forgiving is central.  If our forgiving is hindered in any way—and for those who have endured trauma at the hands of others, this is hard as much as it feels unfair—our trust likewise is hindered, and it affects our capacity to love.

Harmed by the abuse done to us, and harmed by their refusal to repent, we are actually harmed MORE through a heart hardened by these harms, and our inability to forgive hinders our capacity to trust and therefore love.

True reconciliation is more about redeeming our own calloused hearts to trust and love than it is about their repentance of the other or restoring broken relationships.

Love requires abandon, and abandon is exactly what trust is.  Trust trusts because it does.  Trust and love could also be described as “surrender” and there’s nothing more important from a faith perspective than that.  So we can see why love and trust are interdependent, and we can see that faith is characterised by these qualities in the letting go.

As much as love and trust let go and have no resistance, it’s to be the same with forgiveness.  Given that God had no hesitation in extending the loving hand of grace to us in Christ Jesus, we too can embody this love, this trust, this forgiveness, especially as we’ve received God’s love, God’s trust, God’s forgiveness.  We, who are no better than anyone else.

In terms of God’s love, we have been trusted with the keys to the Kingdom because, for all eternity, we have been forgiven.  God can trust us to run the Kingdom when we ruled by love, to trust, forgiving as we have been forgiven—because we have received it humbly.

RIGHTEOUS LOVING OF FORGIVING & TRUSTING LEADS TO LIFE

There is such a contrast between light and darkness, good and evil, love and tyranny in many of the Psalms.  In Psalm 52 there is the image of what happens when we trust in what’s termed “God’s unfailing love” which is perfect faithfulness; when we trust in what is entirely trustworthy:

“But I am like an olive tree 
flourishing in the house of God; 
I trust in God’s unfailing love 
for ever and ever.”

Trust leads to a flourishing life surrendered to God’s purposes, and such a life is free from the tyranny of many burdens that were never intended to be ours to carry.  To LIVE this life is to live IN the house of God.

In life, to go forwards, we often need to backtrack.  I’ve intentionally not called it going “backwards,” because whilst it might seem frustrating and even humiliating to backtrack, it is necessary, and we only realise this when we trust God enough to go back.  In going back, we meet frustration, but with patience and trust we go back with an attitude of fully relying on God, not leaning on our own understanding.  Progress is made when we can go back with an attitude of joy, knowing that God wants the best for us, and that God’s measures of success are not the world’s or even our measure of success.

When we more willingly accept our life situations,
we demonstrate by our patience that we trust God.

FORGIVENESS, THE LOVE OF GOD, IN OUR LIVES

Love in the full sense of the word is embodied in the attitude and action of forgiveness.

God instituted forgiveness from the beginning in the plan that would send the Son to the earth, to live as an exemplar, to die as our Saviour, to be raised as our Lord and King.

God loved us by Jesus’ lived example, Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, and Jesus’ defeating death, each demonstrating forgiveness rooted in love.  It is the model of love.  Our model for life.

Love ensures that the truth is honoured (God’s perfect justice)
and that forgiveness (God’s perfect grace) is offered in trust 
because all will be required to respond to that truth.

When the love of God is in us and working through us, we see both our need of forgiveness—we are so thankful we have been forgiven—which inspires our need to forgive.

God knows we need to forgive to have access to the flow of God’s love that is ever present and available for us.  God knows we need to trust that God does and will execute justice—and we can, knowing that God’s justice is perfect, and that we can leave others’ debts against us with God, just as we must reconcile our debts before God.

For our own good,
for our own health,
for our own healing, 
it’s to LOVE that we are called by God, 
and the principal means to this love, 
practically in our lives, is forgiveness.

This is the call from God to each of us: it is LIVING this love of forgiving in the everyday conflicts that occur in our homes, on the roadways, when shopping, in our workplaces, in our churches, in our going out and coming home, everywhere, just as much as it’s LIVING this love of forgiving debtors in the entrenched conflicts in those places.

Each is as hard as the other, the everyday and the entrenched.  The former is hard because of our instincts, reflex actions, and biases, etc.  The latter is hard because of our hardness of heart and also the wisdom needed in the boundaries that are at times warranted.

Everyday conflicts are forgiven in the moment when we keep ourselves humbly accountable when we judge others in a flash, whether for unintentional errors, mistakes, and lapses.  What a great blessing it is to have such awareness that we can catch ourselves even as “little things” trigger us.  The fact is we so easily judge and condemn attitudes and behaviours that we ourselves engage in; the lack of awareness, the hurry, the indifference, not considering others, forgetting, selfishness as others would see it, etc, whether by intention or omission. 

Entrenched conflicts are forgiven through a choosing to walk in the freedom and light of knowing our OWN sinful nature.  When the log or plank in our own eye is ever in focus, we thank God each day for this knowledge that empowers us to work on ourselves and not point our index finger at others.  We can change things in our own life, but we can do nothing to change another person. When we thank God for the knowledge of our own sin, we embody immense gratitude that we have been forgiven all our sin.  Living in this knowledge removes all burden from us as we walk easier and lighter into each glorious day of our lives, no matter what is happening in our external world.

~

Forgiveness, the love of God, is the eternal message 
not simply for eternal salvation, but for LIFE now
for any who would simply believe, trust, and forgive.

Forgiveness, the Righteousness of God

“God made Jesus who had no sin to be sin for us, 
so that in Jesus we might become the righteousness of God.”
— 2 Corinthians 5:21

Forgiveness, the righteousness of God, is God planning beforehand and doing at the beginning what only God could do—something we would need and could never do ourselves; something only Jesus could do.

God created us free to love, knowing we might choose to sin, and therefore WHEN we did (there were really no “ifs”), we needed God to set us free, once-and-for-all, to love.

Love is creation’s inherent design, dividing good from evil.  Love is goodness, and evil has no part in love.  Love is interwoven into life itself because love forces a dividing line between good and evil.

The righteousness of life is God’s eternal measure 
that humanity must CHOOSE for good OR evil.

In life, there is no middle ground.

It was right for God, in Jesus, to forgive a fallen humanity, because we cannot help ourselves.  We needed God’s forgiveness.  We need it, present perfect tense.  It is also right for us human beings to forgive other fallen human beings.  To live, we need the forgiveness of others, and just as much to live, we need to forgive.

Because of what God has done, forgiveness is right.
To forgive and to be forgiven is right.
To forgive and to be forgiven is justice.
Where sins are reconciled, no debt thereby remains.

If God in Christ did not count people’s sins
against them, then who are we to?

Love is the fulfillment of goodness, and this is the domain of God.  Forgiveness is the epitome and performance of love, so forgiveness itself is the fulfillment of goodness.

Love is the conquering of evil, the triumph of goodness, because righteousness and justice are God’s domain over all creation.  We are God’s righteousness when we forgive, even as God executes eternal justice according to our execution of forgiveness OR lack thereof.

Where we forgive when forgiveness isn’t sought, and thereby transfer the other person’s debt to God, God thereby accounts for that as it pertains to both us and the person we forgive.  Forgiveness is credited to us.  A lack of forgiveness, apology, and repentance is taken up by God.  A debt remains.  All give account.  This is the domain of God.

RIGHTEOUSNESS OR SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS?

Righteousness has become a very unpopular term in popular spheres.  It’s not a word many Christian leaders or Christians are game to use.  It is a very misunderstood term in an era of biblical illiteracy.

But righteousness is nonetheless, as it has always been, true to God’s character, as it is the nature of this life—no matter how much people may spurn it.  We cannot escape these facts.  We live in a world where we cannot escape right and wrong, good and evil, love and hate/ambivalence/fear.  Righteousness is entwined with life.

Righteousness is trusting “God with all our heart, and [to] lean not on your own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5).  When we choose rather to trust our own understanding, doing what is “right” in our own eyes, our paths are crooked, because we can’t see straight.  Those who lack insight can neither love nor honour truth.  It leads to harm.  Harms are therefore done to others by us and by others to us.  The Bible mentions that being “right in our own eyes” is folly no less than 61 times.  Being right in our own eyes is self-righteousness.

The key choice we all must make at each juncture of our lives,
one moment at a time,
is will we go God’s way or our own way?

Will we follow Jesus’ example or Adam’s?  Will we humble ourselves as Jesus did, being obedient as he was to death; his was a cross, our deaths are of our prideful nature of going our own way in rejecting God’s way.

We must “pour contempt on all our pride,” per Isaac Watts’ When I Survey the Wondrous Cross (1707), or otherwise end up in a state of, and partake in events that bring, spiritual death.

WHEN WE DON’T FORGIVE & HOW IT IMPACTS US

A great biblical metaphor for forgiveness and unforgiveness is contained within Ezekiel 47:1-12.  The metaphor is a river with a prevalent flow.  Forgiveness is going with the flow of the river, it doesn’t “push” the river.  To “push” the river is to get stuck in the “swamps and marshes [that] will not become fresh” (verse 11) which is the bitterness and resentment of a hard heart.  This is what happens when we get stuck insisting on changing what we can’t, like getting upset about people we can’t change, or insisting situations be fitted to our “needs”.

The flow of the river is freedom and LIFE, 
but the swamps and marshes are death.

Those who forgive experience God’s freedom.  They accept the flow of the river, the flow of life.  Forgiveness is a wise choice.  It is a choice to reconcile what is, whether we can reconcile with the perpetrator or not.

Those who forgive live habitually empowered lives because the flow of the river brings differing scenery.  When we get stuck in the swamps and marshes, our view is truncated, and we don’t see right.  Forgiveness brings perspective, and certainly Christians enjoy the knowledge of just how good God has been in Jesus—they follow God’s direct example.

Those who struggle to forgive tend to become offended when people reinforce boundaries.  They struggle with letting go and get stuck when they can’t control certain people, situations, and outcomes.  We have all tasted this.  There is no life in such a mindset.

No matter what a person has done to us, 
when we say they are not worthy of our forgiveness, 
we say we are better than the other person is, 
especially when we see them as evil, 
no matter how malevolent they actually may be.

That said, “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord.  We must “leave room for God’s wrath.”  (Both these quotations are from Romans 12:19.)

FORGIVENESS, THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD

God wove into the narrative of the gospel—the saving of sinner’s souls—a pattern for life.

This pattern of God’s wisdom, the righteousness of God, is a pattern that ALL may follow, if they “choose life,” the pattern of which is woven into the narrative of Jesus’ dying on the cross.

Jesus knew when he gave his last commandment before the cross that the disciples would struggle and ultimately fail in their humanity to “love one another”.  (John 13:34-35)

Jesus knew when he prayed to the Father in his disciple’s presence that they would struggle and ultimately fail to “be one” as the Father and Son are one.  (John 17:20-23)

It’s why Jesus told the disciples, “By [your love for one another] everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”  It’s the love that transforms the world.  It’s a love that can only be done one-moment-at-a-time.

There is no hope in the gospel without this love—the love of God modelled in the cross that humanity is to exemplify.  It’s the righteousness of God that we follow in being the righteousness of God.

The wisdom of God is righteousness is life.
There is no wisdom nor love apart from it.

It is a ministry of reconciliation that we have, that we are called to, that sets us free even as we are freed and may show others to this freedom.

“... not counting people’s sins against them... God has committed us to the message of reconciliation.”  (2 Corinthians 5:19)

If God in Christ did not count people’s sins 
against them, then who are we to?

~

The righteous of God in forgiveness is summed up in the account of the adulteress woman of John 8:10-11:

“Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”

“No one, sir,” she said.

“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

Forgiveness because of righteousness,
then righteousness that leads to LIFE.

NOTE: the foregoing is commentary on INDIVIDUAL faith wisdom and what is God’s best and God’s will for individuals.  It’s not about institutional responses to abuse.  Institutional entities have a duty to respect due process.  This justice has nothing to do with forgiveness.