Taking The High Road Is Not Always Easy 9/3/2018

Good Morning,

I tried writing this morning from the picnic table on our patio but a persistent rain forced me inside back to the desk in our den. Even though it is warm outside the rain was enough to chill my body. My cup of Door County Cinnamon Hazelnut Coffee is now working overtime to warm me up.

I have spent lots of time in thought, study, and prayer about the basics of Christianity and have at times thought that Christian principles just don't make any sense. Take for instance tithing, which we do, says to give a portion of what you earn back to God. God really doesn't need money. But yet His Word tells us to do so.  I have concluded that this does make sense if I am to fully follow God and learn to be obedient. I have learned that it is easier to be generous with what is left. I have watched God take a little bit of money and use it to supply a village with beans and rice for a year. God doesn't need my money, but He wants my heart and my obedience.

Then this thing about forgiveness, the root of all Christianity. Now that one for a long time did not make sense to me. Someone does you wrong and you are to forgive them. My thoughts on that one and turning the other cheek to be slapped again did not match my pea brain mind. My first reaction to a slap in the face was to meet it with a left jab and a knock out punch from the right arm followed with a good stomping.

God speaks clearly on my thoughts. My thoughts do not compare to His. He knows that a heart which harbors the inability to forgive is not a healthy heart and not a heart that will ever flourish for Him.

Isaiah 55:6-11 New King James Version (NKJV)

⁶ Seek the Lord while He may be found,
Call upon Him while He is near.
⁷ Let the wicked forsake his way,
And the unrighteous man his thoughts;
Let him return to the Lord,
And He will have mercy on him;
And to our God,
For He will abundantly pardon.

⁸ “For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord.
⁹ “For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways,
And My thoughts than your thoughts.

¹⁰ “For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven,
And do not return there,
But water the earth,
And make it bring forth and bud,
That it may give seed to the sower
And bread to the eater,
¹¹ So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth;
It shall not return to Me void,
But it shall accomplish what I please,
And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.

 

The Life of Jesus Christ and His commands to us are to forgive one another and always put others before ourselves. His mission was to provide atonement for our sins. It was His one and only mission. I struggled with this for years and it did me no good. A heart shackled with bitterness will never beat correctly for God and others. We as humans do not fathom the lengths that God went to forgive and that He expects us to do the same. This my friends is taking the high road, when it is easier to go down hill.  Jesus never said forgiving would be easy. But, He did say that we need to forgive, over and over again. There was no caveat that said to forgive only when the other person deserves it or to forgive if they ask for forgiveness. Matthew 6:15 says, "If you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins." This is serious business. When I find it hard to forgive and take the high road I am reminded that I am to forgive seventy times seven and that God has forgiven me much more than that.

 

Let's look at Scripture. 

Matthew 18:21-22 English Standard Version (ESV)²¹ 

Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” ²² Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.

I take these verses more than seriously. From my studies I have concluded that God understands forgiveness and how He has wired us better than we do. Simplified. Our sins nailed Jesus to a tree. Jesus is the Son of God. Our sins abused God's Son. Our price for our sins was paid for by Jesus. We are washed by His blood. We are washed into the family of God. When we die, Jesus ushers us into heaven and we are welcomed not as a guest but as family, by God. The one who nailed His Son to the tree is welcomed into the home of the Parent. My friends, that is "forgiveness" on the high road. So yes, forgiveness does not make sense to us because we don't fathom God's love and His forgiveness of our own sins. We live a life that is shackled until we experience and fathom true forgiveness.

Time to live unshackled.

Marty