I’m going through 1st Timothy with some people, and at the end of the first chapter the Apostle Paul tells Timothy to hang in there. In verse 18 Paul encourages Timothy to “fight the good fight of faith.” Jesus calls us to a great life but it’s not an easy life. In fact in John 16:33 He said, “You will have trouble (distress and frustration).” Ha, what an understatement.
This fight Paul talks about is one with our flesh, our adversary and the world that is opposed to us as Christians. This includes people, both Christian and non-Christian. People are people and I’m a people too.
Recently I was hurt by someone and it may be the first time I really did not want to forgive and move on. The hurt was pretty deep. Forgiveness is a cornerstone of our faith so forgiveness is not really an option, it is a command. We see this in Ephesians 4:32, we are to forgive “one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” We see this in Colossians 3:13 as well, “Bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you must forgive.” That word “must” makes it pretty clear.
Forgiving people that have caused us harm is critical not only for our relationship with God but imperative for our own health. Unforgiveness, anger and bitterness can create a rut, and once we get stuck in that rut it gets hard to get out. When we forgive we are like Jesus (and who doesn’t want to be like that guy) and what we are doing when we forgive is we are canceling the debt. We are not counting the offense against the person that offended us.
Love is a big part of this. Do you remember the first Bible verse you ever memorized (John 3:16-17), “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him.” Did you catch the “God loved” part: God loved me and God has forgiven me?
First Corinthians 13:1 and 3 says, if I do not love (have God’s love in me), I am nothing. I like the way Eugene Peterson paraphrases this when he writes that if I do not love, “I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If…I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere… I’m bankrupt without love.”
It doesn’t take long to get in the flesh and it doesn’t take long for me to get out of the flesh, praise the Lord. More than anything, every day of my life I want to please God and if I don’t love God and love people I am missing the mark. So I got over myself (this isn’t about me anyway) and canceled the debt of the person that really rattled my world. I got over my frustration. I’m not totally healed yet and there is a band aid over the wound that’s going to leave a scar, but they are not like the ones left in the palm of the hands of Christ or like the one in His side (it does still hurt sometimes if I move just right if you know what I mean). Come on, you can do it because God said you could (Philippians 4:13).
He told me to tell you that.
“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.”
—2 Corinthians 3:17
- Log in or Subscribe to post comments.