The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…
"To Forgive is Divine - and Human"
"As Christ forgave you, so also do ye" (Colossians 3:12).
Of all the commands of the Bible, none more challenge every believer than our calling to forgive. Moreover, to forgive others as the Lord Jesus Christ forgave us. This raises the question: how did He forgive us?
He died for us, bearing our sins, and being made sin for us (I Peter 2:24; II Corinthians 5:17). We cannot do this, of course, nor do we need to repeat our Lord's "one sacrifice for sins forever" (Hebrews 10:12). We rather forgive based on the wondrous gift and effect of our Lord's redeeming work in our hearts, namely, we now bear within the merciful presence of the Savior.
"That He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had afore prepared unto glory… Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Romans 9:23; Colossians 1:27).
We cannot begin to forgive as Christ forgave - unless He not only pardoned our sins when we believed, but also came to dwell within us as the empowering Life of our lives. He did. Thereby, the Lord who "delighteth in mercy" makes possible the formerly impossible (Micah 7:18). As "vessels of mercy," the merciful character of the Lord Jesus Himself, we can bear our cross for others because we bear His indwelling and enabling life. "Always bearing about in our body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body" (II Corinthians 4:10).
Do we believe this about ourselves? Or rather, and far more importantly, do we believe this about our Lord? Is He that present, that active, that vital, and that mercifully pardoning in us? He is, and He is far more vibrantly engaged in our hearts and lives than we can imagine. "It is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure" (Philippians 2:13). Regardless of how we feel, or what conflicting thoughts may course through our brains, the merciful "love is God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given unto us" (Romans 5:5). This we must believe, first, because it is true, and then because our experience depends on confidence that our Lord's presence within us makes it possible to "walk, even as He walked" (I John 2:6).
As the adage suggests, "to forgive is divine." How true this is. But how human it was and is in Christ also, and now through His presence, in us as well. We can forgive as the Lord Jesus forgave us, a "hope of glory" made possible by the indwelling presence of His merciful heart. Indeed, we best know how pardoned we are when God's forgiveness leads us to bear no bitterness, harbor no grudge, and seek no vengeance through the Christ who removed our own sins as far as the east is from the west (Psalm 103:12). Yes, He forgave us when we believed. But He did so much more, making possible through His presence the mercy of our…
"Forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you."
(Ephesians 4:32)
Weekly Memory Verse
The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.
(Romans 8:2)
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