All too often I focus on the evidence of unforgiveness in my life rather than the forgiveness. I’m familiar with the indicators of unforgiveness because I know them well. I know the messy battle of wrestling with what I know to do and how I end up acting.
I know the struggle of saying I’ve forgiven someone, and then the very real evidence that proves I’ve still got a ways to go. And then there are those moments in time that feel like delicate spun glass, filled with crystal clarity that God has worked a miracle. Forgiveness so real that you feel only love and zero residual effects of the offense.
Fully formed forgiveness does three miracles in our hearts.
The most epic story of forgiveness is found between a man named Joseph and his eleven brothers. Jealousy left unchecked and unforgiven causes behaviors that lead to life-long regret. Joseph’s brothers conspired to kill him, but ended up selling him instead. Then they covered up their malice by telling their father he was dead and “proving” by drenching Joseph’s cloak in animal’s blood.
Time passed and Joseph’s journey led him to entrusted slave to the pit to entrusted prisoner to second in command in Egypt. Could he have cultivated bitterness, hatred, and revenge in his heart toward his brothers? But how could his trust in God have grown if he had? I think in the deepest of his hearts he wrestled with his emotions and the dreams God placed in his heart.
Submitting and surrendering to God won. Forgiveness reigned in his heart.
But lurking in his brother’s hearts was doubt. Could this brother of theirs that they hated really and truly forgive them? Was it a show for their father’s sake?
And in the finding we see the three miracles that forgiveness brings to our hearts.
It leaves the righting of wrongs in God’s hands. Joseph asks them, “Am I in the place of God?” You see, God doesn’t want us to take revenge. He wants us to leave other’s actions and responses in his hands. We miss out on God’s redemption for our own hearts when we allow ourselves to be consumed with revenge. Our hearts grow hard and we see nothing but our rage, which makes us rage at others and, frankly, causes us to behave in ways that wound. Leave the righting of wrongs to God. He will make all things right in his time and in his way.
To see God’s plan in man’s malice. God used hate-filled intentions to bring Joseph to a place where many lives could be saved. Joseph saw, by God’s grace, a larger picture than what he lived. He trusted God with his heart and life even when he couldn’t see how it would work out. You can too. You may only see and feel the hurt caused by another’s choices or actions, but ask God to give you a glimpse into how God is using the wound. Maybe he’s growing compassion in you or the ability to forgive. And that maybe you’ll get to share your story with someone who needs to hear how God worked good out of bad.
To repay evil with practical affection. Joseph ends Genesis with kindness. Kindness is love in action. He acted kindly toward his brother and their families. It’s one thing to speak words, but it’s an altogether different thing to act kind towards someone who meant you harm. Remember my story from a couple of weeks ago? Even though my heart pounds with the memory of the pain, I can show kindness.
Let forgiveness work it’s miracle. It’s a process and some days you won’t feel like you’re making any progress. Rather than turn away from God and the person, turn to God with your hurt and pain and let him move in you and through you. The first step is declaring forgiveness. The second and third and fourth and so on, is embracing the process. And then it becomes real. Let the process transform you as love transformed the Velveteen Rabbit into a real bunny.
We’ve had Good Friday and then a Saturday. Some call it sad, or silent, and for some it’s just Saturday–that day of getting things done. But Sunday comes and with it the recognition and celebration of Jesus’ resurrection. There’s sunrise services, pancake breakfasts, and coffee. Kids and candy. We sing songs celebrating the cross and hear sermons centered on Jesus.
But what happens Monday? We drag ourselves out of bed still half drugged by all the delicious food we ate the day before. We stumble and bumble as we take one wobbly step after the other.
Do you forget the power of Resurrection Sunday and turn to the power of caffeine to make it through your morning? I stumbled through my Bible reading today and didn’t feel awake until I gulped that cup of steaming coffee. How does the resurrection change your life? Or does it?
I’m sitting here, slouched low with a blanket tossed over my lap. The skies are laden with hidden snow and a wind that slips through the cracks of this old house. I wonder how quickly bedtime will get here and I sigh as I wonder where that resurrection power went. Today felt less than powerful.
Is God’s grace only good for when I am full of energy? Is it grace when I’m on top of my game, but have I lost my hold on grace when my speed is that of a sloth?
Could it be that we have our understanding of grace misconstrued? What if it’s grace to embrace moving at a slower pace? What if it’s grace to snuggle a little longer with your babies or linger over that cup of coffee as you listen to the birdsong?
It’s the start of a new week and we experienced the climax of Christiandom this weekend. The betrayal. The sorrow. The beatings. The grief. And the wonder. It’s all grace because it was part of God’s plan to bring us to himself through his son Jesus.
And if grace can include the hard then we must look at our hard through the lens of grace.
Remember that morning where you longed for an intravenous line of coffee and it took all day to get your engines going? There’s grace in it because Christ is in you.
Yes, we have responsibilities that call us. And we’re going to eat too much and pay for it the next day. We’re going to be irritable and snap at our co-worker, our family, or our friends. That doesn’t mean grace has left us.
“But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared,he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior,so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” Titus 3:7 ESV
It’s in those moments, when exhaustion sets in or irritation rules us, that we need to remember that it’s not our actions that prove grace is in our lives, but it’s God’s mercy that he washes us and renews us by the Holy Spirit. It doesn’t ebb and flow based on your mood or energy or what happened to you today. It’s our response that ebbs and flows and the more we relax into God’s transforming, amazing grace, the more we’re changed.
The Takeaway for Grace
As we surrender to the washing and renewal of the Holy Spirit our wretchedness gets exchanged for grace, our lost-ness for found-ness, and our blindness for sight.
On your next bad day, take a perspective shift and ask God to show you the grace in it. It could be developing perseverance, endurance, maturity, or hope. Today, I knew God as my strength, not just to help me with the physical exhaustion, but emotional strength as I dealt gently with my people.
I’m a both and kind of girl. It’s both coffee and chocolate. It’s both chocolate cake and chocolate frosting. I can’t separate the two. I mean, I can, if I have to, but I’d prefer not. But those are the easy both/ands. Those are the ones that I can take and run with that don’t make me squirm or feel twitchy inside.
It’s the ones that challenge our pet preferences, especially when it comes the Bible, that make us twitchy. Everybody has them, so when one of the both/ands rub up against those preferences, which we often disguise as biblical truth, we get. . . twitchy. You know, that squirmy feeling we quickly ignore, but keeps coming back and so we drown it out with busy? Yeah, meet twitchy.
Grace and Truth
Grace and truth is a both/and kind of deal, and it’s easy to get twitchy about them. Our human tendency is to lean slightly one way or the other. We extend so far to the grace side that we forget to bring truth right along. Or we run so fast with truth as a weapon that we leave grace back there at mile marker 3 while we’re at mile marker 20 brandishing our sword.
The two can’t be separated, it’s when we try to separate the two that we create legalism and liberalism. Both prevent the Holy Spirit from truly accomplishing his work in our lives. So what do we do? How do we stop this separation of grace and truth?
John 1:16-17 “For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”
For starters, we focus on the personhood of Jesus Christ. Who was he? Why did he come? Why should I follow him? We can answer these questions by starting at the beginning. Jesus is God in the flesh. He came to show us the way to Father God and following him is the absolute best, most remarkable decision you can make. Not so that you have a “genie in the bottle,” but so that you have the hope of heaven in your heart, which makes every trial or burden in this life a mere stepping stone into the presence of God.
So. First things first. Consider your own heart. There’s a funny little saying that when you point at someone there are three fingers pointing back at you. Technically, they’re pointing at your hand, but I think we get the picture. Be careful how you point an accusing finger at someone. Often the lack we witness in other’s lives is prevalent in our own.
Jesus brought both grace and truth. He fulfilled the law, streamlined the law and in essence made it much more difficult to follow since it’s now dealing with the heart rather than behavior as the Mosaic law did. But his grace is what gives us the power for our hearts to be changed. Grace is the power we need for transformative living and when we reject grace in our own hearts, we turn back to the Mosaic law and focus on behaviors.
Grace considers how much God loves you. Think on how Christ set that kind of love before him in order to endure suffering on the cross. If God’s love can be Jesus’ motivating joy, and through Jesus you get to know that kind of love, embrace it. Embrace the grace that God pours out into your heart.
The truth? God loves you. He has set you apart. He has called you to be righteous. What steps can you take, with God’s strength, to step into that righteousness? What habits or attitudes are preventing you from “right-living” according to God’s standards?
It’s both grace and truth simultaneously growing in your heart. As you experience God’s grace and truth working in your heart, you will be so enamored with loving God and serving others that another person’s failure won’t bring out the pointing finger. But instead it will bring out a story of how God showed you grace and truth to change your life.
I use to be afraid of people and their rejection. But God showered me with grace. He reminded me over and over again that his approval could satisfy me. But he also showed me truth. He showed me how people’s approval had his spot in my heart. I turned seeking people’s approval into an idol. I can’t serve two masters. God helped me kick that people-pleasing, fear of rejection, dead idol right out of my heart.
Grace and truth. They work together to bring lasting change. They work together to bring victory. Keep them together as one unit and watch how your life is transformed.
