Friday, March 31, 2023

Forgiveness, the Holiness of God


Humanity has a common and collective desire.  It is prosperity.  But the reality of our lives is far less certain.  With threats to our financial, physical, and emotional safety—among several other needs—life is riskier than most of us would like it to be.

There is a chasm between 
our innate desire for peace and 
the harsher reality common to life.

There is one thing that would assure us of our individual and collective prosperity, and that would be if only we were all “like God” to the extent of God’s holiness.

The two most basic theological facts about God and humanity are fundamentally contrastive:

Humanity (each person) is made IN God’s image, 
YET God is completely “other-than” humanity.

The first fact says we are made of the same stuff, and this is in tension with the second fact, that we are nothing like God in one particular way: we are not holy.  But amazingly, Scripture still calls us, as a steady and consistent refrain, to “be holy, as God is holy.”

The central premise of the gospels is not only 
to “believe” in Jesus, but to “follow” Him.

God desires to transform in character 
all those who are made in God’s image.

Sanctification is the name we give 
to the process of becoming holy.

Discipleship is the name 
we give to this craft.

Jesus commands His disciples 
to MAKE disciples.

~

GOD’S HOLINESS IN FORGIVENESS

One of the key differentiators between us humans and God is the forgiveness in God’s grace.  The truth of God’s grace at the Cross boggles the human mind.

No human heart can truly comprehend it.

God forgave humanity completely in the most sacrificial acts—the giving up of His own Son.  In such a plan, God loves humanity so much He does not spare a thought.  Indeed, the Son was intimately involved in the plan from before the very beginning of creation.  God thought nothing of sacrificing Himself for His precious and beloved creation.  It was the only thing that love could do.

Well before creation came into being, 
God knew humanity would need to be rescued.

God was willing to sacrifice all of Himself
to save His precious creation 
and this demonstrates the purity 
in the love of His forgiveness.

Yet, it’s completely different for us human beings.  Humanity often cannot forgive petty grievances.  If we are honest, we can think of times when we struggled to forgive someone for something very minor.  The behaviour of a fellow road user who has had a lapse, for instance.  Someone who has cut in front of us in a queue.  Often whether by mistake or deliberate.

When humanity shares God’s character in ease with forgiveness, that humanity bears God’s holiness; “they are holy as He is holy.”  But something must happen for humanity to bear this grace.

God must transform us 
in the likeness of His holiness.

Only God can do the transforming.
It is a miracle of His grace.

~

BEARING THE HOLINESS OF GOD IN OUR FORGIVING OTHERS

The honour we have living this life is the opportunity of holiness, to “be holy as God is holy.”  No human being should deprive themselves of this opportunity, for it is the halcyon peak of human experience.  It is true transcendence.

But we can only achieve this level of otherness-with-God when we give up what we cannot keep to gain what we cannot lose.  And what does that mean?

Only when God is the most important thing in our lives does He command our focus and attention to the degree of our allegiance.  We must ask ourselves, “Will I always be prepared to do what is true and right and just and appropriate to honour God?”  This is what it is like to be holy.

To honour God at every point 
is a commitment toward holiness.

Often the hardest thing of all in life is forgiving.

This is because we have been transgressed, and rarely in these circumstances have the transgressors owned what they did.  More commonly they dismissed it, or said “get over it,” or worse, said “it never happened.”  It is hard to forgive as God forgave and forgives.

We have the opportunity 
not only to bear God’s image, 
but to exemplify God’s character.

Exemplifying God’s character 
is not about being “like God”.
It is about BEING the humility, 
the mercy, and the compassion of God, 
exemplified in Christ who died for us, 
though we were, still are, 
and always will be sinners.

We will only know what it was like for Jesus on the Cross when we bear His holiness in forgiving others their trespasses against us.  Read that again.

There is no way we can empathise with God—that is FEEL as God feels—without giving ourselves and our justice away.  It runs counter to how the world would have it, and how the world insists we live, and it also runs counter to our own intuition and ‘logic’.

But it is what it is.  There is no getting around this.  Judgement is God’s!

What is it about this way 
of being the BEING of God? 
It overcomes the seven deadly sins.

It overcomes our pride, for in our humility we accept the transgression and forgive it, just the way God has forgiven us.

It overcomes our anger, because self-control is a form of heaven, so we accept the transgression and forgive it, just the way God has forgiven us.

It overcomes our greed, for we know greed gets us nowhere other than far from God, so we accept the transgression and forgive it, just the way God has forgiven us.

It overcomes our envy, for understand the transgressor has won nothing, so we can accept the transgression and forgive it, just the way God has forgiven us.

It overcomes our sloth, for we understand that demonstrating diligence is godliness.

It overcomes our gluttony, because we know that stuffing ourselves with our own wanton desires is just another form of hell.  And it overcomes our lust in the same way—out of control desires are the epitome of hell.

Back in the day, when I was going to five AA meetings a week, so often I would hear people say, “Just give your all to this program for three months, just promise yourself that, and you will never look back.”  It is so true.

Living the holiness of God to the extent of forgiving as God has forgiven us need only be done under the same conditions.  If we give our heart and soul over to God in these ways of living the love of God, we will not turn back, for the Spirit of God will convince us that there is no life on earth like heaven on earth.

Heaven on earth is possible, 
as in the Lord’s Prayer—
on earth as it is in heaven.

The only way is to LIVE it.

~

CRAVING A DIFFERENT WORLD

The cravings of the holy person are of realities of another world brought to life in this world.  Truly this is “on earth as it is in heaven.”  The truly holy person believes so much in this way of living it becomes the purpose of their being.

The more we believe for this kind of reality, the more God opens the eyes of our hearts to the possibilities.  Can there be a better purpose for being?

We crave a different world when we are sick of the violence, the pain, the dysfunction, the corruption, the selfishness, and the evil.  Yet, while we are here God’s holiness invites us into realities that transcend the disparaging nature of this world.

The purpose of our being 
is to bring heaven to earth.

This starts in our own lives.

This is the call of holiness.

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