Forgiveness! Now I know Jesus is Crazy!

You know, obviously, this isn't true, but to hear Jesus talk, you'd think that He had never been hurt and never really had no one in His life to forgive. Otherwise, how could He of said some of the crazy (and I use that with all the reverence I can muster this morning!) things He said about it? Its almost creepy to me. Personally, I get into the whole eye for an eye thing, when it suits me. City of refuge? Sure! But your gonna have to leave sometime and when you do buddy.....

Okay, I got that out of my system. Forgiveness is a funny thing; its a completely different animal in the New Testament scriptures. I can imagine the people sitting around as Jesus was giving the Sermon on the Mount and can see their reaction when He starts talking about forgiving men their trespasses so that God can and will forgive you.

Now, digress with me for just a moment. Imagine with me, momentarily, that we do not have a Jesus, no New Testament scriptures, and we all simply have people that we respect and listen too. Now, imagine a co-worker or better yet, a family member who is constantly pushing those buttons just as hard as they can. Your exasperated and you go to your sage, so to speak, and you ask him/her, "how long am I going to have to put up with this, oh Wise one.?"

Here is exactly where I would get into trouble. Because, I am sure I'd have that answer already down pat long before I asked it. "You've waited long enough. You may pop them in the nose next time they offend you." Oh yeah! Now, that is my kind of scripture! And to be honest, I went to bed last night thinking of some people I'd just simply like to smack a good one! Oh, don't get all sanctimonious on me. You know you've felt that way too. Heck, I have a few I'd dig up just for the pleasure.... okay, so that borders a bit on the insane side. But, you know what I am talking about.

Unfortunately, or, fortunately, depending on your spirit and how you look at it, we must come back to Jesus and the New Testament scriptures. As much as my flesh would like to set Him and His teachings aside at times, their nagging quality persist! You know God did that on purpose, right? But, seriously, it's in times like this that I have to learn to listen to what I do not want to hear. "Jesus, how often do I forgive my brother when he offends me? Seven times?" (Matt 18, my paraphrase) Oh, that's gracious. Come to my house and offend me once, I might not let you know about it. About the third or fourth time, I'm liable to grab you by the seat of your pants and throw you out. Well, more so these days because.... that's another post. But, yeah, seven? That's gracious in my opinion!

But, oh no, Jesus had a completely different definition, didn't He? I call it it the wipe your feet on me please mentality! LOL Okay, enough sarcasm, I am cracking my own self up this morning. Jesus tells Peter, seventy times seven, all for the same offense, and all on the same day: next day, new slate. OMG!!! No He didn't! Yes, He did! Man, sometimes Jesus really can get me talking to myself!

Do I really think that Jesus expected Peter to forgive 490 times a day for the same thing? No, I don't. What I do believe, however, is that Jesus was telling Peter to forgive--completely. Remember the love chapter? "Love is not irritable, and it keeps no record of when it has been wronged." 1 Cor 13:5 (NLT) What Jesus was telling him was that the number thing was the wrong mindset altogether. Imagine, if God kept records like that? Forgiveness, genuine forgiveness, operates on a higher plane, and that is why many of us never really get it.

Do I think God holds it against us too harshly? Perhaps not. He looked down from the cross with compassion for a people ridiculing and hurting Him and He cried, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do?" I recently heard someone say that on the cross Jesus was separate from His Father and the Spirit; the trinity if you will, whatever that means. But, no, that isn't what Paul said. "For God was [in] Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people's sins against them. This is the wonderful message he has given us to tell others..." 2 Cor 5:19 (NLT, emphasis added) I am not going to argue theology or semantics today, but if you rewrite the "in Christ" part of that verse to make it mean something that it's not, then we got a lot of rewriting to do altogether. No, the entire Godhead participated in that act of redemption for the sole purpose to free us from our wrong doings. And what are we to do with it? Pass it on....

Oh my, that cuts across the grain, doesn't it? How can I tell others a message that I am not willing to live out in my daily life? Oh, hey, by the way, I hate you for what you did to me, but Jesus loves you?!? In the distance, though, I hear some words uttered centuries ago by a Jewish revolutionary: "freely you have received, freely give." (Mat 10:8, NKJV) That is so hard. No one ever said following Jesus was going to be easy! Love the unlovable; embrace the social outcast, touch the untouchables. That part is easy. Its the family waiting outside the house where everyone there perceives you as a somebody, but they, their embarrassed and think your mad (Matt 12). Oh, my.... Its that neighbor who persist in leaving that one strip of grass that he knows is his but... love your neighbor as yourself...

So, your hurt; I am too. What about boundaries? I don't know. Perhaps, another day. Sometimes I wonder if we don't use those psychological constructs as crutches to keep us from doing as Jesus said. Please don't misunderstand me this morning. Every single time I utter the Lord's prayer, I pause and almost stop when it comes to the "[...] forgive us our debts, As we forgive our debtors." Matt 6:12 (NKJV) At the same moment as I forgive others, God is forgiving me. If I don't forgive others, He's not obligated to forgive me....

That's really some tough stuff, because some of us have huge burdens of pain and hurt. Abuse, and malicious intentions where people have harmed us with malice and forethought and they've just not cared. Some of us have cried more tears than we can count, stained pillows, being woke in the middle of the night with that gut wrenching feeling and question, why? Why God? In fact, some of us feel as if He did it to us, don't we? We were too young to even defend ourselves....

Years ago, in my youth, the Lord spoke a scripture into my spirit, that no matter how far I've ran or how bitter I have been, I have never forgotten it:

5 Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the LORD his God: 6 Which made heaven, and earth, the sea, and all that therein is: which keepeth truth for ever: 7 Which executeth judgment for the oppressed: which giveth food to the hungry. The LORD looseth the prisoners: 8 The LORD openeth the eyes of the blind: the LORD raiseth them that are bowed down: the LORD loveth the righteous: 9 The LORD preserveth the strangers; he relieveth the fatherless and widow: but the way of the wicked he turneth upside down.

Psalms 146:5-9 (KJV)

Look at the language there. Jacob is just Jacob; the heel grabber and thief; no Israel/Prince, titles of honor for him that day. But, He's happy. Why? Because the Lord is his help, hope, and God. And, this isn't just any God. No! This is the very God that made the heavens, earth, sea, and everything within. In reality, David is speaking to the orphan, which, for various reasons, was tailored made for me when I was a child and He spoke these words to me. He keeps truth forever, meaning, you don't have to worry about His intent or whether he will keep his word! He will do what he says and while it might not happen today or tomorrow or even in your time frame, you can rest assured that it will!

He executes justice and judgment for all that are oppressed! Ah! Those are the words I heard! Vengeance belongs to Him, forgiveness is mine. Hmmm....... But, the promises don't stop there: He will feed us with bread we didn't earn, loose us from prisons of our own making, open our blind eyes to let us truly see our need for Him, and then, He will lift them that are bowed down! That "bow" is not reverence. No, its being weighted down with the cares and hurt and pain of years of oppression and abuse.

I have to leave this now, but I know that there are many people that I need to forgive. People I can't go too; it's simply too late to do so. I know that in myself, I will never be able to do so. Part of me don't want to let them off the hook. But, the scripture I just shared tells me that its not my responsibility to be concerned about whether or not they get what is coming to them. Who am I to judge another man's servant? I do what I can.... God, forgive me please, as I forgive those who have harmed me......