The glory of life is set before each one of us: to comprehend our existence, our purpose, our reason for being here, our being in its entirety. Comprehension is the beginning, the middle, and the end.
Our existence, our purpose, our reason, our being:
It is all inspired from forgiveness and
it impels us to live a life of forgiveness.
To live NOT as if we were God,
but to LIVE as God lives,
powered by God within us.
Forgiveness is the example of God
in Jesus Christ, Person and God.
To live this life...
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Forgiveness in God is so many things,
not least, mercy, justice, holiness,
empathy, unity, and wisdom.
I am convinced that that which is the core of the Gospel message is also the core to our healing—a healing we all need, a healing we need periodically, a healing we need each and every day. To guard against tiredness and hardness of heart we are so prone to be enveloped by.
Forgiveness is mercy, the mercy of God, a mercy we are to enact by example.
FORGIVENESS, THE MERCY OF GOD
The mercy of God is activated the moment
we face what otherwise separates us from God.
The mercy of God is there, awaiting, dormant,
for the person contrite of heart
recognising their need of God.
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God’s mercy toward a needy humankind is irrefutable when it is experienced by a forgiven believer. What I am saying is there is something tangibly real about the transaction we human beings make with God that makes the mercy of God palpable in human experience.
Humanity needs mercy, just as each of us needs it. As we receive it, we learn how important it is to give. Not only do others need it, but we also need to give it to others to re-experience God’s mercy to us.
As we extend God’s mercy to others,
God’s mercy is felt afresh in us.
There is a direct correlation.
Mercy is a thing that brings and begets life. We must experience it to feel human and to feel alive. We must also partake of it by extending it to others if we are to feel human and to feel alive.
Mercy at least in these terms
is the potent expression of love
that has practical meaning.
We may not comprehend love
until we have experienced mercy.
But as soon as mercy is experienced
the life of love unfolds in our lives.
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Forgiveness is justice, the justice of God, a justice we are to enact by example.
FORGIVENESS, THE JUSTICE OF GOD
The justice of God is an entirely good thing. It is both benevolence and righteousness. Completely good, true, right, appropriate, consistent, and predictable. The justice of God leaves no good thing judged and condemned.
God did not send the Son into this world
to judge and condemn it (John 3:17).
Humanity has made the justice of God into a horrid thing, a heinous thing, an horrendous thing. But the justice of God only reveals to us what is plain to see. We need God! This justice of God helps us to separate the truth from the lies. This justice of God saves us, and it helps us live the way of salvation that others might also see, feel, experience, and live that way also—even as the fuller evidence is available on all our hearts as to the cavernous gap between us and God.
Forgiveness is holiness, the holiness of God, a holiness we are to enact by example.
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.
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Forgiveness is empathy, the empathy of God, an empathy we are to enact by example.
FORGIVENESS, THE EMPATHY OF GOD
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.
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.
Forgiveness is unity, the unity of God, a unity we are to enact by example.
FORGIVENESS, THE UNITY OF GOD
Father, Son, Holy Spirit is a unity—the unity of the Trinity. Triune God is tri-unity. There is no closer or better unity. The Godhead three-in-one is the quintessence of unity upon which there is NO division.
This is the unity with which we humans crave, that oneness of self that forever seems to evade us.
Unity is of God and God is unity. Indeed, unity is goodness, especially when people create and maintain unity through sacrificing themselves for each other.
25 percent of one disciple’s account of Jesus’ life
is devoted to the message of unity and forgiveness.
One one-thousandth of Jesus’ ministry—the final night,
the summation of everything that Jesus stands for.
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Put in the simplest of ways,
when Christians forgive one another,
they herald a power the world does not know,
and the world notices the transcendence of this love.
The world is drawn to this Jesus love.
When Christians love one another,
the world sees Jesus
because forgiveness is of God.
Unless we go to God, the God of unity, we cannot find what we need to forgive. This is because we need to replace something deep within us with something deep within God.
Forgiveness is beauty, the beauty of God, a beauty we are to enact by example.
FORGIVENESS, THE CITY OF GOD
“I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.”
—Revelation 21:2
What does the bride look like who is prepared for Jesus, the husband. “Dressed” means ready. Ready in this context means she is holy as He is holy. Adorned “beautifully” and, in other words, appropriately, to BE with God, in God’s inimitable presence.
As we re-read Revelation 21:2 a few times and meditate on it, thinking in matrimonial imagery, surely, we are encouraged to consider what it would be for the entity of “the bride” being a match for God—she is the “Holy City,” the “New Jerusalem.”
The whole aspect of “husband” and “wife,” as we appropriate these terms in marriage between human beings, can be a distraction to what is going on in Revelation. The point biblically is that “the bride” is a match, or an appropriate partner, for husband Jesus.
Of such unity of the City of God, I am immediately taken back to Jesus’ final night before He is tried, scourged, condemned, then crucified. John chapters 13 through 17 capture truly what is Jesus’ most intense teaching about the Father Heart of God.
Both a command and a deep wish, Jesus repeatedly told His disciples to “love one another...” as He Himself had loved them, who was about to give Himself up for them.
This love that we are to share
with one another is the unity in God.
The City of God (or the bride)
is to love itself (others) as God loves it.
When we behave with such love,
we ARE the City of God.
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The City of God are God’s people.
They are the ever-present witness of God.
They are gloriously safe,
welcoming, esteemed, regal,
holy, friendly.
The City of God executes
the mercy of their Maker,
because, due to their character,
they see far beyond a selfish justice.
Forgiveness is wisdom, the wisdom of God, a wisdom we are to enact by example.
FORGIVENESS, THE WISDOM OF GOD
Forgiveness is the key way we guard our hearts (Proverbs 4:23; Philippians 4:7), and the key truth to return to is the mercy of God. Indeed, Paul highlights from the first eleven chapters of Romans, having set out a forensically perfect case for the gospel, that everything that God has already done is more than sufficient to motivate us to live a life of forgiveness, which is love, sincerity, gentleness, gratitude, and grace, etc, and everything else about virtuous intent and demeanour from Romans 12-16.
In terms of a living modus operandi, forgiveness is the unbeatable wisdom of God.
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Forgiveness for a Christian is as simple as loving God back. There is no better way of loving God than loving others through the forgiveness that God commands us to do.
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As Jesus was and is the Exemplar of God in forgiving a humankind that so often does not understand what it needs, we too are given to this world to be examples of that living faith that brings life.
As Jesus is the Example of God,
we too are blessed when we too become
examples of the love of God in mercy
that can only come from God.
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