Forgiveness can be a challenge…

Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord God: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Lord God, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes. I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. (Ezekiel 36:22–28)

Years ago someone sinned against me and I struggled to forgive this person. Forgiveness is difficult enough, but that person would not acknowledge it, making it even more difficult. Finally God gave me the same thought expressed in the above passage — that God forgives for His own sake. It is who He is.

At that. I was able to forgive, for God’s sake but also for my own sake. He had given me a new heart and His Holy Spirit and forgiveness was part of that new nature. It had to be done for that reason.

The Lord adds to this and His words humble and bless my heart:

And I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses. And I will summon the grain and make it abundant and lay no famine upon you. I will make the fruit of the tree and the increase of the field abundant, that you may never again suffer the disgrace of famine among the nations. Then you will remember your evil ways, and your deeds that were not good, and you will loathe yourselves for your iniquities and your abominations. It is not for your sake that I will act, declares the Lord God; let that be known to you. Be ashamed and confounded for your ways, O house of Israel. “Thus says the Lord God: On the day that I cleanse you from all your iniquities, I will cause the cities to be inhabited, and the waste places shall be rebuilt. And the land that was desolate shall be tilled, instead of being the desolation that it was in the sight of all who passed by. And they will say, ‘This land that was desolate has become like the garden of Eden, and the waste and desolate and ruined cities are now fortified and inhabited.’ Then the nations that are left all around you shall know that I am the Lord; I have rebuilt the ruined places and replanted that which was desolate. I am the Lord; I have spoken, and I will do it. (Ezekiel 36:29–36)

If nothing else, these minor prophets show me what God is like, both holy and gracious. He loves His people but hates sin, not only because it hurts us and ruins our lives, but because it also defiles His Name. He is not like us, and if our sin is not forgiven and cleansed, we are not able to be like Him. Sin mars the image of this One who created us in His image. Many excuse it by inventing the idea we came from apes, yet others reveal it in incredible creativity and sometimes by extreme generosity. However, apes don’t build skyscrapers or invent artificial hearts or paint Sistine chapels, or fund orphanages and hospitals.

We are supposed to love, forgive, help the helpless, and display other God-like characteristics, not rob banks, shoot children, beat up our spouse, abuse, and slander, or do all that humans do that is not like our Creator. But we are not able to shed that selfishness of DIY effort. Only God can say:

Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will bring you into the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I am the Lord; I have spoken, and I will do it, declares the Lord.” (Ezekiel 37:12–14)

He proved He could do this by coming here, dying for our sin then rising from the dead, the firstborn of many.

Jesus, because You lived and died to save me from my sin, I want to die to those old nature ways and honor You, live for You. Oh dear Lord, thank You.

 

God still rules the world

Ezra 5:1–6:22, 1 John 3:19–24, Psalm 106:30–48

My heart is heavy this morning with several things: two sad funerals, acts of unkindness seen in people I love, awful shootings in SC, and a person vehemently supporting those who are blatantly sinful, claiming human rights. I went to bed last night trying to pray and feeling hopeless, but the Word of God gives me encouragement to pray.

First of all, God is still in charge: “Now the prophets, Haggai and Zechariah the son of Iddo, prophesied to the Jews who were in Judah and Jerusalem, in the name of the God of Israel who was over them.” (Ezra 5:1) What they said to their people was from God who rules. He is still on the throne.

Second, no matter my emotions, God is greater and listens to my prayers. If I have no specific sin blocking my requests, He will hear and answer. “By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him; for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us.” (1 John 3:19–24)

The Holy Spirit gives assurance to those who believe in Jesus and fully trust and abide in Him. He says that obedience and abiding are my assurance for answered prayer. He is listening to the burdens of my heart as I trust Christ and love others, including anyone who disobeys or blasphemes His name. Just as God hates evil, I can hate evil, yet just as God loves sinners, I can love sinners.

Third, my example of how to deal with those who rebel against God is God Himself. “Many times he delivered them, but they were rebellious in their purposes and were brought low through their iniquity. Nevertheless, he looked upon their distress, when he heard their cry. For their sake he remembered his covenant, and relented according to the abundance of his steadfast love. He caused them to be pitied by all those who held them captive.” (Psalm 106:43–46)

In the time of Ezra and the captivity of God’s people in Babylon, God caused Cyrus to send them home to rebuild their temple. Despite extreme opposition, God was at work and even Darius, the next king after Cyrus, upheld that decree and supported the people of God. God is merciful and gracious.

Fourth, the psalmist gives another example of how I can deal with those things that burden my heart, particularly when I see the rampant spread of sinful lifestyles and the easy acceptance by others. It hurts to hear those who insist that people have the right to live in sin, but even more to hear them say no one has the right to call them on it. This is not new, yet a man of God wrote: “They provoked the Lord to anger with their deeds, and a plague broke out among them. Then Phinehas stood up and intervened, and the plague was stayed. And that was counted to him as righteousness from generation to generation forever.” (Psalm 106:29–31)

One man interceded in prayer for those who provoked God to anger, and God heard. The results of His wrath (a plague) ended and the death that they deserved because of their sin was averted.

I can pray. I can know that God hears me. He may not withhold wrath or judgment and people may not stop what they are doing, yet like Phinehas, I can believe God. In believing be at rest because I am trusting the Lord with those things that only God can control, remembering that no matter what, He remains in charge.

To Live is Christ — depending on His mercy

Abraham’s servant asked God for help. God directed him where he needed to go and to the person he needed to see. When that was over, the servant said, 

Blessed be the Lord God of my master Abraham, who has not forsaken His mercy and His truth toward my master. As for me, being on the way, the Lord led me to the house of my master’s brethren. (Genesis 24:27)

One other prayer in the Old Testament is similar to this one. Jacob was afraid of his brother, Esau. He prayed to God and said,

O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, the Lord who said to me, ‘Return to your country and to your family, and I will deal well with you’: I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies and of all the truth which You have shown Your servant; for I crossed over this Jordan with my staff, and now I have become two companies. Deliver me, I pray, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau; for I fear him, lest he come and attack me and the mother with the children. (Genesis 32:9–11)

The psalmist says a similar thing in Psalm 98:3, “He has remembered His mercy and His faithfulness to the house of Israel; All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.”

The only thing I can think of that would make a person bless God for remembering His mercy is realizing what he actually deserves from God. Because God is holy, and because our sin is like a fist in His face, He has every right to destroy us and start over. However, instead of giving us what our sin deserves, He remembers mercy.

Humility knows this is true. Abraham’s servant knew that God did not need to help him with his task. Jacob knew that God had every right to say no to his request. He had been rebellious toward God for much of his life. Why should God help him? As he said in his prayer, God answered Jacob because God is merciful.

Mercy means showing compassion toward an enemy. It means doing good to someone who deserves the opposite. When we rebel against God, or choose to ignore Him, God also has a choice. He could allow us to perish and die in our sin. Yet because He is not willing that anyone perish, He offers mercy and forgiveness through faith in His Son.

The Son is also merciful. Instead of letting us bear the punishment we deserve, Jesus Christ mercifully took our place, bore our shame, and died in our place. Mercy means that instead of eternal damnation, we are offered eternal life.

The gift of life is free, offered to those who take it. However, in taking it, everyone needs to remember that we are like people adrift in a boat. Christ calls us to throw out a rope and a hook and catch hold of Him; He is the shore, the safe place, the place of mercy.

Yet even as I do that, when I pull on the rope I also must remember that I am pulling myself to the shore, not the shore to me. Just because He is merciful does not mean that I can make Him to do what I want. Instead, I must align myself to Him, humbly realizing that if I got what I deserved, there would be no call, no hook, no rope, and no hope.

His great graciousness

God’s people in the Old Testament were a stubborn lot (am I much different?). They resisted His will and unfaithfully turned to idols. In their spiritual backsliding, God never gave up on them. He continually wooed their hearts and made promises of hope and blessing.

This morning’s verses touch my heart once again concerning the mercy of God. He speaks through the prophet Hosea, first describing how His people abandoned Him. Then He says this:

“Therefore, behold, I will allure her (Israel), will bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfort to her. I will give her her vineyards from there, and the Valley of Achor as a door of hope; she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, as in the day when she came up from the land of Egypt” (Hosea 2:14-15).

God uses images from their history that would remind at least some of them of His patience and grace in the past. They were a stubborn people who insisted on their own way even after He delivered them from Egypt and took them forty years through the wilderness to the promised land. Achan sinned and brought judgment in the Valley of Achor where he and his family were punished by death, yet still they did no learn their lessons.

My commentary says that they were so obstinate that God has to “allure” or woo them by tempering His judgment with unexpected grace so He could win them to His ways. He would bring them into the “wilderness” which reminded them of their struggles and trials as they wandered forty years, a time where God helped them realize the horribleness of their sin and its bitter fruits.

Then, after all of that, they “met with the trouble resulting from Achan’s crime in this valley” at the very threshold of the promised land. However, that trouble was soon turned into joy at a great victory whereby they finally obeyed God and at Ai all Canaan was given into their hands. This was the “door of hope” opening to better days, accented by the fact that this valley of Achor was particularly fruitful.

This is the way God works. When I resist Him, He knows how to soften my stubbornness and bring me into obedience. He knows my history and reminds me of past disciplines and blessings, helping me understand that by yielding this time, I can expect good things as a result.

Today our outside temperature is -28 Celsius, but these thoughts warm my heart and draw me near to the One who knows and cares about every difficulty and every need.