This week we have taken a look at grace, mercy and love.  We have discovered that these are amazing gifts that God has blessed us with.  We also have come to realize that we do not exercise the use of these gifts near in the way we could or should.  Today we are going to look at another of the amazing gifts that God gives to us – the gift of forgiveness.

Forgiveness is the act of pardon or release into freedom as if nothing ever happened.  Forgiveness is all about freedom.  Freedom for the one who gives the forgiveness and freedom for the one who receives the forgiveness.

Forgiveness can be given without someone asking for it.  For forgiveness to have power in our lives, we have to first be willing to receive the forgiveness that God has given to each one of us.  The receiving of God’s forgiveness, sets us free to live in relationship with Him.

After we have received forgiveness from God, then we are ready to give forgiveness to others.  We did not get forgiveness because we earned or deserved it.  We got forgiveness because God gave and we received.  We do not give forgiveness to others because they have earned or deserved it.  We give because God gave to us and we have learned that forgiveness is the key that unlocks the door and sets us free from our self-imposed prisons.

1 John 1:5-10 teaches:  “5 This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. 6 If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.  8 If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.”

Remember:  Forgiveness is about freedom for the one who gives and the one who receives.  Lewis B. Smedes writes in “Forgive And Forget:  Healing The Hurts We Don’t Deserve”:  “Forgiveness is God’s invention for coming to terms with a world in which, despite their best intentions, people are unfair to each other and hurt each other deeply.  He began by forgiving us.  And He invites us all to forgive each other.”

Receive forgiveness, give forgiveness, experience freedom and let the grace, mercy and love of God flow – you will be glad you did!

 

Love is one of the words that gets tossed around in such an easy and often flippant way.  We say “I love you, I love this or I love that” and often apply it to all sorts of different things, when what we really should be saying is “I like”, but it’s more than like, so it must be love right?  Wrong!

Love is the action of sacrificing for and being committed to another for nothing in return.  Love is much more than a word, it is action.  Love is much more than feeling, it is commitment.  Love is much more than emotion, it is divine.  Love is not about what it can get, but what it can give.

I Corinthians 13:4-8 describes it this way:  “4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.  8 Love never fails.”

When we think about what it means to love, we need to think about how God loves us. Listen close to the birds as they sing to one another and you will hear the wisper of God’s love.  God out of His great and amazing love for us has an ongoing conversation through what we see, hear, feel, taste and smell.  God communicates with us even when we are not paying attention, because He loves us and in that love He is waiting for us to hear it, get it, experience it.

Our way of loving Him back is by being attentive, by paying attention, by hearing what it is that He is saying.  The world that we live in is alive with God’s presence, power and love.  Through His great love for us God can and will take even the bad and use it for our good as we love Him back.

Love is an amazing gift of God.  Receive it and give it!  Dr. Kent M. Keith gives us some great advice on receiving and sharing the love of God with the actions of our life, when he teaches us in “The Paradoxical Commandments” that:

“People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
Love them anyway.

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.

If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.

Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.

The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway.

People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.
Fight for a few underdogs anyway.

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.

People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.
Help people anyway.

Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you have anyway.”

For a big part of my life, I have allowed what others thought of what I say or do, to have too much of an influence upon who I was and what I did.  It is almost impossible to relax and enjoy life when you are trying to look and live a certain way for the purpose of being accepted or loved by others.

It is only by coming to the end of yourself that you realize that this life lived for the opinions of others actually robs you of the life that your Creator intended for you to have and experience.

I do not deserve to have God in my life.  In fact, I deserve to have God against my life, because of my almost continual attraction and submission to sin.  But God loves me and not because I deserve to be loved, but because He is love.

God created me for a love relationship with Him.  A relationship that provides joy, happiness, purpose and fulfillment that flow through His presence with and in me.  I deserve to be eternally separated from God, His love and blessing.  I deserve to be unhappy, unfulfilled and miserable.  But God does not give me what I deserve, instead He gives me what I don’t and could never deserve.

We learned in yesterday’s blog that grace is getting what you don’t deserve.  Today, we want to focus on another amazing gift that God has blessed us with – the gift of mercy. Mercy is being spared from judgment, harm or retribution for our unlawful, wrong, bad and sinful behavior.

Titus 3:4-7 puts it this way:  “4 But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, 5 he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, 6 whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.”

While grace is getting what we don’t deserve – an amazing relationship with God that last for all eternity, mercy is not getting what we do deserve – eternal separation from God, His love, protection and blessing.

William Shakespeare said:  “The quality of mercy is not strained; it dropeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath.  It is twice blessed – It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes.”

My faith is not in myself or what I can do to try to live a life that is pleasing to others.  My faith is in the grace and mercy that flows out of the love of my God.  It enables me every moment of every day to experience the miraculous and unexplainable.  It enables me to entertain the real pleasure of living with myself in God and God in me.

Thank You God for life and the luxury of real and right relationship with You.  Not relationship that is earned or deserved, but relationship that flows out of your love through grace and mercy and allows my ordinary life to bring You extraordinary glory.