Matthew 18:21 "Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?"
When you're looking for a limit, like Peter was, you're really looking for a time when you can have your own way, no matter how noble your limit is. If you're looking for a time when you can have your own way, then you're still lost in your own thoughts, not in the thoughts of Christ.
Listen - when Christ makes the "demand" that you forgive indefinitely, with no limits, He is removing a burden from you, not adding one. When He tells you to pray for your enemies, to give an extra coat, walk an extra mile, He is releasing you. The rest is on Him. When a president is elected that many of you don't like (Washington, Lincoln, Bush, Obama, etc) and Jesus tells you to relax and seek His kingdom and His righteousness, He is releasing you. The removal of limits is His way of saying: "Think differently and walk in a higher way. This is not my kingdom."
The natural man wants to hate, wants to fight, wants to be bitter wants to divide into factions. According to Galatians 5, factions are a fruit of the flesh, on par with sexual immorality and witchcraft. If that's the case, then why do we actually look for ways to be mad, even to the point of creating factions out of the most minor points? We try to refine this nature by saying that we tried but we finally reached our limit - as if this makes it somehow noble - but it's still the low road.
If we're looking for limits then we're really still looking for loopholes that will allow us to feed these beasts of burden. We're still walking in the flesh. A more advanced and confined version of the flesh, but the flesh nonetheless. We're just animals, like Peter, who have been trained to count to seven instead of one. As usual, Christ blows this mentality completely out of the water.
If we're truly walking in the Spirit, we realize it's all on Him and we are freed to love and pray and forgive. There are no limits to that, so quit counting.
1 comment:
This is great. This is a big struggle for me, and my guess would be (based on the media...etc), it is a problem for everyone. To me, our culture, our society, our "America", praises ridicule, praises "the fall", praises those who point out mistakes, and then praises those who ridicule people who have made mistakes, who in the past have ridiculed others for mistakes. We all seem to have this incorrect way thinking, that we can do things perfectly, and that there is a better way. Well there is, it is Jesus' way, but there is no other. But maybe it is imbedded in our minds from the fact that we are made by God who is perfect, that we think we have a better way. We are short-term thinkers, to easily we only think about the here and now, and not eternity (maybe because we have mortal bodies), or even the next 20 years. We seem to feel that double digit GDP growth, low inflation, low unemployment, and constant growth in the stock market is what we need and want, and if someone can't make that happen then someone is to blame. Because of the blame game movement, owning up to your mistakes has become one of the toughest things to do. I see it all the time at work, to admit to a mistake is not an option.
It's a shame that forgiveness is looked down upon so much. It seems that people are ashamed of it, because it makes them feel weak and not in control. And I am not talking about the kind of forgiveness that you tell your friends and loved ones. I am talking about the forgiveness where you walk up to someone who has just taken everything you own and you give him them a high-five and say, "It's alright man, it's all good...(and maybe yell serenity now!!! as well)." If we couldn't do that or at least strive to do that, we just don't get what Jesus is talking about.
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