Colossians 3:13-15
As the Lord Forgives
13 Bear with each
other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive
as the Lord forgave you. 14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds
them all together in perfect unity.
YOU see that, don’t you? “Forgive as the Lord forgave you.”
Funny (as in
timely and truly) how God’s Word works, as I was thinking an hour ago of
someone who really made me mad about 2 years ago. You know what that’s like, don’t
you? Out of nowhere comes this memory of someone’s attitude, words or actions against
you. You feel your pulse rising and your mind considering what you really
wanted to say.
But wait a minute.
Do those thoughts really come out of nowhere? In reality they come out of an
unforgiving heart, don’t they? My second thought was, “Let it go. Forgive him.”
But I didn’t. My heart has too much unforgiveness to feel forgiveness. So what
do I do?
Ah—there’s the
answer: Bear with the man and realize I’m a sinner, too. Put on love and
consider how in his love, Jesus died for me when he could easily have held
judgment and righteous anger in his heart against me. I need to forgive the man
as the Lord forgave me.
Without Jesus’
love in my heart, I have no capacity to forgive unless I wear Jesus’ love. Oh,
Jesus’ love is the love that brought him to the world. Jesus’ love is the love
that confronted the devil, the legalists and the sinners. Jesus’ love is the
love that healed disease and healed sin. Jesus’ love is (John 15:13) Greater love has no one than this, that he
lay down his life for his friends. Jesus’
love forgives.
No comments:
Post a Comment