Forgive First?
Too Many Find That Easier Said than Done
Part 1
OK how ...?
Cope Your Rope With Faith, Love & Hope
I recently received an emailed God card of a pretty picture postcard emphasizing Colossians 3:13 - forgive one another, as God forgave us.
My first thoughts were of a disagreement I had with some of my family members that has lasted about eight years.
“Sure,” I thought, “That is easier to say that than it is to do it.”
But I was curious of the meaning of the word "bearing" in the verse. Instinctively, it's too easy to construe its meaning as an appeal to "Agree to Disagree." I can tell you that I tried using that acceptance strategy. For eight years, it has not helped to resolve disagreements with my family one bit.
That approach leaves disagreements unresolved. Taking the "I'm OK, You're OK" attitude about relationships only seems to encourage diversity at the expense of right and wrong. It seems to me to be a cop out. It's an approach that opens the door of avoidance too easily.
We live in a society encouraged to celebrate faults in the name of diversity, not diversity in the name of glorifying God. There are some faults, for example in morality and integrity, that are really screwed up these days.
It seems that our society has missed the meaning of right and wrong. To our society everything is encouraged to be OK. I guess that goes along with our societal bent over freedom. But God's word reminds us that while everything God makes is inherently good, it may not be beneficial or edifying under the circumstances in which it is being exercised (1 Corinthians 10:23)
All things are lawful, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful, but not all things edify.
There are absolute rights and wrongs; without them there would be no justice. Without justice, there is no peace.
How do we get around ignoring right in favor of wrong? We change the law as though it is OK to see how close we can get to boundary between right and wrong without crossing the line. People consider it their right to do that in the name of freedom, instead of steering well clear of the line. Of course, is daring and our blood pressure rises to give us a rush that we got away with it this time when we explore where that line is. Of course that practice allows for personal choice, but personal choice does not often result in a peaceful and loving society.
Do you want to know a truth about that practice? That kind of practice kept one whole generation of Israelites who were freed from Egyptian slavery from entering the Promised Land. Even though their leader saw the Land that God promised to give the freed Israelites from a distance, Moses himself didn't get to set one toe in the land of milk and honey that I am sure he had been dreaming about for the forty years the Israelites wandered in the desert wilderness because they wanted to see what they could get get away with.
Thinking something is right does not mean it is indeed right. That kind of mindset is what poisoned man's relationship with God in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve, tempted by the serpent thought it was all right to disobey God's command not to eat the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. God never said that the fruit was not good! God just said, don't eat it. The serpent's angle was to plant the "Why" question in Eve's mind. The serpent planted the thought in Eve's mind that God was not allowing them to eat something that was good. The question that led to exploring where the boundary was between right and wrong was "Why would God deprive Eve from something that is good?" After all, God had already said that everything He made before that moment was good, right? And Eve took a bite and didn't die as God said she would. That thought probably made her think she was right; so she gave some of the fruit to Adam to eat as well.
What readers of the Bible sometimes miss if why the Tree from which the fruit came was called the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil." God obviously knew that sometimes the difference between judging what is good versus what is evil seems blurred. That blurring can be easily caused by the suggestion that the line between right and wrong is a mistake. It had to be a mistake, the snake as much as said it was. And Eve didn't die, did she?
Ah Ha, that is where Eve went way wrong in her assumption about what "death" was to God. To God, Eve's exploring where the line between right and wrong was what led to her crossing the line between Life and Death. And Eve never even thought about how disobedience could relate to a fundamental distrust of God's motive for His command. All that Eve did was prove that mankind was vulnerable to suggestions of evil intent. What was so wrong about that? It pointed to a fundamental weakness in mankind. What do you mean weakness? Simple:
Only God Is Equipped to Judge Good & Evil, Hence:
Don't Eat the Fruit of Knowledge of Good & Evil!
That question came out so effortlessly in this story didn't it? The line between right and wrong is being explored when God's command is assumed to be a mistake.
- God is God and does not make mistakes.
- So that question should not have even entered into Eve's mind.
- Instead, Eve opted to reduce the infallibility of God.
- And that implied that He was not God in Eve's thinking.
Why was mankind vulnerable? The simple observation is that mankind was vulnerable because up until God let the serpent loose in the Garden of Eden, there was no evil; there was only good.
- Could it be that God knew that mankind could not distinguish justly between the knowledge of good and evil?
- Could it be that mankind had trouble distinguishing between good and evil because only God is the ultimate judge of that?
- Forgiveness : That's Good, Good
- Unforgiveness : That's Evil, Bad, Bad
Personal choices are prone to suggestion, bias, weakness, habit and self-indulgence, often simply chosen because we can and want to explore what we can get away with. But, shouldn't society by now be a little tired of suffering for wrong choices made just because individuals or minorities want to be free to do as they wish? Look around to see how that that exploration has been working for us. People invent reasons to celebrate diversity that may be specifically one's personal desires. Seeking and celebrating personal desires rarely glorifies God.
Look I get it, there are things that we people were born with, unique chemistries, strengths, weaknesses, incredible ways of thinking about things or doing things. It is wonderful to celebrate diversity to advance peace, love and hope. It is not so wonderful to celebrate diversity when it infringes on peace, love, and hope. The motivation is glorifying the "self" not glorifying God.
The context of the 1 Corinthians 10:3 has to do with Christians living in a social culture that thought, explored and lived life differently. Paul is telling his own people to resist the temptation to incorporate customs and behavior in general that may not be beneficial to all and to resist demanding that the social culture be changed to agree with their culture, even though they all are free to explore them.
The choices we make must include living together in peace, love and hope. Again, the problem seems to be that mankind's ideas of peace, love and hope do not match what God commands them to be.
Of course, we can choose to change the local laws, or we can leave or fight or kill. But, when it comes down to that, there is never any peace, love, or hope for justice. When there is no justice, there can be no forgiveness and without that there is no peace, love or hope.
This is the reality of the condition of our world today. Mankind continues to push on the rope that it's hanging itself with. Sooner, not later, we find there are no knots around to hold onto because there are no peaceful places around that are loving and offering hope. Everyone in that situation ends up living a compromised life, a life that is less than it could be, and less than God intended it to be.
It Is definitely wrong to think that anything goes. It is wrong to lie, cheat, steal or kill as long as we can get away with it. It is wrong to gorge ourselves with self-indulgent whim and someone else's expense. The more laws we make, the more fragmented our diverse society becomes. How did we ever get so many priests, martyrs, gurus, deities, experts, lawyers, soothsayers, master counselors?
Everybody seems to hide behind their own law. If they get a little money in their pocket, they want to change the law to be more to their individual liking. That kind of thinking has resulted in so many laws that people have forgotten what the purpose of laws are for. Laws are not made for our benefits or entitlements. Laws do not make wrongs right.
The Bible tells us that laws were created to identify wrongful sin (Romans 3:20).
Laws identify and deal with wrongs. They are not enacted to necessarily promote self-manifested concepts of diversity or personal preferences.
Our society needs to deal with our God-less hearts. We have a society with almost as many gods as there are people. Everyone since Adam and Eve have tried they hand at being their own little god. In that regard, laws against walls, chains, weapons, lies, thefts, beatings, or shootings are not going to help because the God-sized hole in our collective hearts goes unchecked. The only laws that are big enough to fill the godless relationship hole in our hearts are God's Laws. Folks, that is not going to change.
It is almost as though people think that good exists only when wrongs contrast it. There need not be wrongs for there to be good in the world. But, every good that is left undone, just makes more room for the bad that is incompatible with with God. God has allowed such a cleansing wipe-out before, and He has said that we are living our last chances before He passes His final judgment.
Look at Adam and Eve, The Great Flood of Noah, and The Tower of Babylon. He hasn't wiped out all of the people since the Great Flood, as he did with Adam and Eve, He just through them out of The Garden of Eden, His test bed for Heaven.
God is consistent and unwavering; 'Get out of Eden forever Adam, and take Eve with you.' That's a wipe-the-slate action. The Great Flood? That was another wipe-the slate-clean. Only 8 people survived out of what could have been as many as 9 billion people. Trying to build a Tower in Babylon to be as high as God? God divided communities, gave every group unintelligible languages and He is still punishing wrong minded people, most recently by allowing pandemics and allowing mankind's let freedom ring whims encroach on the dissolution of security- and trust; thus, destroying trust across the whole of global society. A separated relationship with each other and with God is hell on earth.
What is God waiting for?
He wants to give everyone who has lived and who will live up to that time a chance to choose on what they will base their lives and beliefs for the time of Final Judgment that only He knows.
Take a look at how God described the condition of society 2000 years ago. Compare what you see about society today against that which existed in the past by looking at Romans 3:9-18 where God gives a description. The conclusion will confirm that Final Judgment can come at any time in near our future.
What then? Are we better than they? Not at all; for we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin; as it is written, "THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS, NOT EVEN ONE; THERE IS NONE WHO UNDERSTANDS, THERE IS NONE WHO SEEKS FOR GOD; ALL HAVE TURNED ASIDE, TOGETHER THEY HAVE BECOME USELESS; THERE IS NONE WHO DOES GOOD, THERE IS NOT EVEN ONE. THEIR THROAT IS AN OPEN GRAVE, WITH THEIR TONGUES THEY KEEP DECEIVING, THE POISON OF ASPS IS UNDER THEIR LIPS ; WHOSE MOUTH IS FULL OF CURSING AND BITTERNESS; THEIR FEET ARE SWIFT TO SHED BLOOD, DESTRUCTION AND MISERY ARE IN THEIR PATHS, AND THE PATH OF PEACE THEY HAVE NOT KNOWN. THERE IS NO FEAR OF GOD BEFORE THEIR EYES."
Those values are symptoms of what is wrong with our society these days. Things have not effectively changed from the way they were 2000 years ago! God's Word tells us that only:
Through Jesus Comes Forgiveness
I decided to do a little Bible study on the verse and on the subject of forgiveness in general. I will give you a summary at the results of my study in Part 2.
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