Break the chains

 

Titled Transitions-this picture is part black and white representing Winter, the other half in true color representing Spring. The lady, a stranger to me was sitting under this tree by herself which is a symbol of how we struggle internally and alone during the transitions in life. Pain often proceeds true change and this picture, for me, tells the tail wonderfully. 

On the heals of the last post concerning being forgiven, I'd like to touch on being the one to forgive. The whole goal for Jesus coming to Earth was to forgive everyone's sin. You see it several times in the gospel when Jesus said your sins are forgiven. His message was a message of hope and light and joy. The same message can be offered to those who offend us. 

Have you ever seen the movie, The Shack or read the book it was based on. In that book the main character has to confront and forgive the man who kidnapped, rapped and killed his daughter. For me and most everyone, the loss of your child to an unimaginable crime like that is too much to think about let alone forgive the person who committed it. Yet, everyday, criminals, rapists, drug users and sellers, human traffickers, murders and more come to the forgiving knowledge of Christ Jesus. Their slate is clean as the day they came into this world. Heaven forbid we go through a situation where someone does something horrible to us. Not only would the crime transform us but the hate that comes with it does as well. Hate brews and hate creates a darkening heart. It kills the wearer of indignation and cuts off the light to their heart. 

I saw on the news several years ago where two young adults were rapped and murdered. The men responsible were sentenced to jail for those crimes. The father of the young woman through his interviews and his language and his look, you could see hate consuming him from the inside. He aged in the years it took for the convictions and the case to be dealt with. It affected him I think more than those men. What if he forgave them though. In the middle of the court room, what if he walked over, gave the men a hug and truly forgave them. Could their lives be changed from what it was to something better.

Forgiveness is the only power we have that can change someone's heart. Because forgiveness encompasses judging as well. If we focus on someone's sins and judge them, then forgiveness is not in our hearts. True foregiveness bypasses and overlooks any sin that a person does. If we can't overlook and foregive, then we may fall under the same judgement. As we have the power to foregive, so do others. If we judge we may also be judged by others.

Forgiveness is at the heart of God. The Bible is a love letter of foregiveness to us. As I said before, those that have been foregiven much will love much. Be the key to someone's prison. Be their light in this world by saying one phrase, I foregive you. 

May God have all the Glory

Forgiven Much, Love Much

Luke 7:47 "Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.”

A little context, this passage is where a sinful woman brings an alabaster jar full of perfume to put on Jesus. She weeps at his feet and kisses them and puts the perfume on them.

What prompted the overwhelming response by this woman to do these things. Her great sin. The realization of who Jesus was, what He could do for her, overwhelmed her with grief at her sinfulness. She knew she had sinned much and when Jesus forgave her, she loved much.

In response to the Pharisees issues with this, Jesus says in Luke 7:41-42

“Two people owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. 42Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?”

The answer came, the one who owed more.

To love much, we must understand some things. Forgiveness is one and to be forgiven of an offense is the other. If an offense has taken place and forgiveness is to work, the person who did the offense must realize that it was an offense. 

If I take a person's property. Say I broke into their home and took their TV, I must first realize that taking their TV is an offense to the person I took it from. If I don't realize it, then forgiveness has no power to transform me. I took the TV and say I wasn't caught. So I keep breaking into houses and stealing stuff for months until finally I get caught and taken to court. There I stand before the judge and he says, do you know what you did was wrong. At that moment, I know it is wrong. Whether I knew it before or not, I know now because the judge has said so. It doesn't matter if I agree or not, I'm still guilty and I get thrown into jail.

Can we not say the Holy Spirit works in the same manner. Conviction hits our heart and yet we continue to sin. Conviction is the same as standing in front of that judge, they are both asking the same question. Don't you know, this is wrong? People can tell us, friends can tell us but the conviction from God hounds us and plagues our soul day and night. The more we deny the conviction, the more miserable we are. It is the equivalent of being thrown into jail and each time we come in front of the parole board and are asked if we feel sorry for what we have done, we say no. If no, then we spend a longer time in jail rotting away in our denial. 

Often times, those that deny wrongdoing blame others for their situations and behavior but we all have a choice. Do we sin or not. However, those that continue to sin or escalate their sin, if they can grasp and understand their wrong doing, then they can also grasp forgiveness.

It takes an understanding of ones sin in order for forgiveness to really do its work. Like the parable that Jesus said, those with the least debt have the least love and those with the massive debt love much.

If we expand further away from personal understandings and look at the big picture, why did God not step in when Adam ate of the fruit. 

He let us fall into disrepair only to create humility in our lives. Humility comes from an incapability to do something on your own. If your in darkness and you can't see and you have no ability to get out of that darkness, then you are humbled and you have to accept help.

I recently went to a cave with family. In that cave, they take you to the very end and turn the lights off to give you the experience of total darkness. It was intimidating to say the least. If something happened to the power, could we navigate through the cave. Probably not. We would need someone to come down with a flashlight to light the way back. If we deny our inability and say we can do it, we stumble around in the dark. We could fall off the path, tumble down steps or worse but the struggle to leave that cave would be overwhelming.

Fun fact, did you know that permanent blindness can occur if someone is trapped in total darkness for too long. Again, the physical world mimics the spiritual. If our hearts stay in the dark for too long we can become hardened which is the equivalency of being blind.

Light has to find its way into our hearts. It must expose our sin to us. We can live in the darkness and deny but we miss the whole point of this blog, forgiveness and love. 

When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees. “Go away from me, Lord,” he said, “for I am a sinful man.” Luke 5:8

Why did Simon say this, he realized his sin before but refused to confess. Put in this situation where he knew who he was in front of, the light shown so brightly, he had no choice but to confess.

Its all through the gospels, people coming to the realization of their sin. It was the whole point of John the Baptist coming before Jesus to prepare the way for the hearts to confess. Sadly, they didn't get it and instead of admitting their sin, they extinguished the light. 

They missed the whole point. Sadly I miss the point as well, we all do. We crawl along like a snake in the grass hoping no one will see our issues and problems. We slither from hole to hole staying in the shadows and striking at anyone that gets close to help. Sound familiar, brood of vipers. 

I have seen and been on the side of forgiveness and let me tell you, it is humbling and yes much forgiveness brings forth much love. It is the whole reason God sent His Son to the cross. It wasn't about saying, look at what your sin did to my Son, which breeds guilt and guilt is the opposite of what God wants. No, Jesus on the cross was for one thing, to give God the ability to say to us, I forgive you. It was a path of light to show us the way back. Up to that moment, blindness had set in and their sins were many. They relied on the law of Moses to keep them straight but law never cures a man of sin it only exposes the sin. It cannot quench the fire. 

The law cannot transform, it can only bring guilt. It's like a person getting a lone and never paying it off because of interest. If I had a credit card balance of $5,000 and the interest was 20% and I paid the minimum payment of $84.33, I would end up paying back $23,642 in 22 years and 4 months. This is like the law of Moses. The sacrifices of bulls and sheep made for sin was only the minimum payments. 

Jesus came along and paid our debt off completely. However, we need to accept the fact that we are in debt and need help.

I love much because I have been forgiven of much and when I see how much I have been forgiven, it creates a heart that is transformed. Easter is a reminder of much forgiveness and the ability for us to admit defeat at the foot of the cross. When you look into the eyes of someone who has truly forgiven you of your transgressions towards them, it changes you. Know your situation, know your sin, confess it and be free from it. Simple yet difficult. Humiliating, yet freeing. Painful, yet transformative. 

To God be the Glory