ONE THING NEEDFUL

ONE THING NEEDFUL

O Lord, why do I trust You in some areas of my life, but look for other resources when I need help in other areas? How is it possible for me to trust You for my eternal destiny and then look to the world for everything else? Please deliver me from the disease of compartmentalization, in which I merely make You one component of my life and put other things like my work, my family and my friends in other compartments. Give me the faith to truly believe that You alone must occupy the center of my being, my aspirations, my hope, my purpose, my everything. Then I will see other things from an eternal perspective and realize that everything comes from You and is for You. I want to recommit myself to the lordship of Christ in each sphere of my existence and enjoy the holy release of desiring the one thing needful above everything else.

THE PROMISES OF GOD

     How to Amaze God, 2 Samuel 7:28

There are only two places in the gospel accounts where Jesus was amazed. On one occasion, a Roman centurion’s servant was sick and about to die. Jesus agreed to go and heal the servant, but the centurion stopped him. In essence, the centurion told Jesus, “You and I understand the nature of authority. I understand it because I’m a military commander. You understand it because you’re a . . . well, I’m not sure what you are. But I know that when you speak, things happen. Therefore, I know that I can trust you. If you say that my servant will be well, he will be well. So save yourself the trip.” When Jesus heard this, he was amazed. He had never heard anyone in Israel express that kind of faith (see Luke 7:1-9). Which brings us to the other time Jesus was amazed. It happened in his own home town, where people had no faith in him at all (Mark 6:6). Great faith, and lack of faith, amaze Jesus.

Like an aspiring young officer in today’s Army who reads of the exploits of Pat-ton, Marshall, and Eisenhower, one wonders if the Roman centurion had read the Old Testament stories of the soldier-king, David. If he had, he would have learned about a man who knew that God’s word could be trusted. In the process of becoming king, David had been protected from death by a lion, a giant, pagan kings, and even by the demented king of Israel whom he had been anointed to replace.

But David lamented the fact that he, as king of Israel, lived in a beautiful new palace while God, as king of the universe, dwelt on earth in a tent—the same tired tabernacle that had been carted through the wilderness for forty years. He wanted to build God a temple to dwell in. God’s answer was that David would build a spiritual house and David’s son would build a physical house. David’s response? “Your promises are trustworthy.” In the words of the old preacher, “God said it, David believed it, and that settled it.” As a servant of Christ, does my faith amaze him?

God’s Promise to You: “I would never tell you anything that is not the truth.”

RELATIONAL SPIRITUALITY—PART 8

     Loving Others Compassionately

     The Grace of Forgiveness

 One of the most important dynamics in relational spirituality is the grace of forgiveness.  

     Forgiven by God

     It has been observed that there is no sin so great that God will not forgive, but there is no sin so small that it does not need to be forgiven.  The Old and New Testaments center on the theme of redemption and forgiveness, stressing the human condition as one of alienation and moral guilt before the holiness of the Creator.  It is through God’s mighty and loving act of redemption in the cross of Christ that He can offer the gracious gift of forgiveness without compromising the perfection of His justice and character.  And it is through the grace of divine forgiveness that our alienation can be overcome and a loving, secure relationship as true members of God’s family can be inaugurated.  
     The dynamic of forgiveness involves the response of repentance and con-fession.  We must humble ourselves before God and admit the reality of our sin-fulness, asking Him for the gift of forgiveness and new life in Christ.  And hav-ing put our trust in Christ alone for our salvation, we stay in fellowship with Him by asking the Spirit to search our hearts and reveal any areas of uncon-fessed sin, and responding by acknowledging these to the Lord and thanking Him for His forgiveness (Psalm 139:23-24; 1 John 1:9).  
     God’s forgiveness erases the sin from existence: in the imagery from the Old Testament, He removes it “as far as the east is from the west” (Psalm 103:12), He casts them behind His back (Isaiah 38:17), He wipes out our transgressions for His own sake (Isaiah 43:25), He remembers our sin no more (Jeremiah 31:34), and He casts all our sins into the depths of the sea (Micah 7:19).  In the imagery of the New Testament, we are assured that “when you were dead in your trans-gressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certifi-cate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross” (Colossians 2:13-14).  
     Even after coming to Christ, many people find it difficult to accept God’s unconditional forgiveness.  There is still a lingering natural disposition to think we must work off the debt and earn divine forgiveness.  Guilt feelings can cause people to revisit the sin in the past instead of laying hold of the fact of God’s for-giveness in the present.  The idea that we have outsinned the grace of God is a failure to grasp the height and depth of God’s grace and love.

     Forgiving Others

     “I was angry with my foe:

     I told it not, my wrath did grow.”

     —William Blake

     Having been forgiven by the grace of God on the basis of Christ’s finished work on the cross, we are now exhorted to manifest a mindset of forgiveness in our relationships with others (see Matthew 18:21-35).  Thus Paul exhorts us to “Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you” (Ephesians 4:32; cf. Matthew 5:12).  Elsewhere he writes: “So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you.  Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.  Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful” (Colos-sians 3:12-15).  

     The Cost of Forgiveness

When we forgive those who have hurt us, we are really acknowledging that we too have needed forgiveness and that we are not as different from the offender as we might like to think.  There is a natural tendency in all of us to ex-cuse our own faults and to blame others for their faults, an inclination to reach for grace and understanding in our own situation and to reach for justice and possibly revenge when the same wrong is committed by others.  Instead, Scrip-ture calls us, as people who have experienced God’s forgiveness, to take the place of the other person.  
     In Christ, we are to offer grace rather than justice to the wrongdoer (chari-zomai, one of the words used in the New Testament for forgiveness, means “to deal graciously with”; notice how it is used in 2 Corinthians 2:6-8).  This is often a difficult and unnatural act, because it does not seem fair to those who have been wronged.  For to forgive others is to release them from any obligation to make up to you what they have taken from you.  But as Lewis B. Smedes argues in Forgive and Forget, “When you release the wrongdoer from the wrong, you cut a malignant tumor out of your inner life.  You set a prisoner free, but you dis-cover that the real prisoner was yourself.”  
     Thus, to forgive as we have been forgiven by God is really an act of faith, since it means that we are releasing the right to resentment and we are entrusting justice to God rather than seeking it ourselves (see Romans 12:19).  To forgive is to act on the truth that it is only God and not we who can change another person.  
     It has been quipped that “There’s no point in burying a hatchet if you’re going to put a marker on the site.”  But when we have been seriously injured by another, we want to put a marker on the site so that we can dig our resentments up to nurse them from time to time.  Because forgiveness can feel like outrageous injustice, it can be a lengthy process rather than a once-for-all event.  This is evi-dent in the painful process Joseph went through in forgiving his treacherous brothers (Genesis 42-45).  
     Long after you have forgiven, the wound can linger on in your memory.  As Smedes observes, forgiving is not the same as forgetting or excusing or smoothing things over.  True forgiveness is costly, especially when there is no repentance on the part of the wrongdoer.  But it is the only way to release us and others from the bondage of guilt (see Christ’s gracious restoration of Peter in John 21:15-19) and to break the vicious cycle of blame.  Part of the cost is letting loose of the pride that can allow trivial things to corrode a relationship for years or decades.  
     As an exercise before God, take a piece of paper and write down the names of those who have hurt you over the years through disloyalty and be-trayal.  Offer this list to God along with all the pain it rekindles, and make a choice through faith in Christ to forgive each person on the list.  Then crumple the paper and burn it before the Lord who forgave you from the cross.

AN ETERNAL PERSPECTIVE

Dear God, I want to cultivate an eternal perspective as I journey through this temporal arena. May I learn to pursue the eternal reality of the unseen future over the current reality of the visible present. Knowing that reward in the Kingdom of heaven is based on faithfulness to the opportunities You give me in this life, I want to treasure each opportunity and see all of life as a stewardship. While I cannot grasp the full nature of the rewards You promise to the overcomers who abide in, love and obey Christ, I believe the greatest dimension of reward will be relational intimacy. The nature and depth of my relationships with people in heaven will be a great joy. But the greatest reward will be my capacity to know and experience You. May You be the object of my deepest love, so that I will pursue You above all else.