Justice is God’s

Forgiveness, God 0

We sometimes feel that, if we forgive someone, justice will not be served.  They’ll get off scot-free.  We’ll be doing little more than giving them permission to do wrong again, seeing how easily we let them get away with it this time.

From a human perspective, this makes sense.  But our minds need to be renewed to think God’s way.  According to God’s Word, wrongdoers will get their just due.  But we’re not the ones responsible to mete out the penalty….

Letting the offender off your hook doesn’t mean he’s off God’s hook.  Forgiveness releases the accused from your custody and turns him over to God — the righteous Judge — the one and only One who is both able and responsible for meting out justice.

And so what feels like the height of unfairness, what seems to be nothing more than giving our offender the pass, actually becomes for us a step of freedom….

But listen to Joseph’s response to his distraught brothers:  “Don’t be afraid.  Am I in the place of God?” (Genesis 50:19 NIV).

What wise, humble words!  Am I in the place of God?  Is it my job to make you pay for what you’ve done?  Do I really want the added burden of this after all I’ve been through already?  Isn’t it foolish to think that revenge could be as sweet as advertised — sweet enough to make up for the pain of all these years?

— Nancy Leigh DeMoss, Choosing Forgiveness, p. 92-94

Forgiveness from Christ

Forgiveness, God 0

While forgiveness is indeed costly, it is not beyond the means of those who have Christ’s life flowing within them.  When God tells us to love our enemies, He also gives us the love to go along with the command.

Yes, you can do this… because He can do this….

And so because He has forgiven us — and because of His boundless life which now indwells us — what offense is too great for us to forgive?

— Nancy Leigh DeMoss, Choosing Forgiveness, p. 90-92

He is Present

God, Trials 0

And yet, paradoxically, during those years of struggle, not believing in him, not seeing him, having no faith at all, I nevertheless felt him there.  He was present in my anger.  Present in my loneliness.  Present in my world’s refusal to be what I wanted it to be, and present in his own denial of anything I wanted to make him into.  Present.  With me.  Patiently waiting for me to turn and see him.  And still I struggled.

— Patty Kirk, Confessions of an Amateur Believer, p. 67

God’s Gift

Forgiveness, God, Healing 0

We are the children of God, every one of us, and nearly nineteen hundred years ago He gave us the greatest of all the gifts He has, greater even than life.  He gave us hope:  a way back from every mistake we have made, no matter how small or how large, how ugly or how incredibly stupid, or how shameful.  There is no corner of hell secret enough or deep enough for there to be no path back, if we are willing to climb up.  It may be hard, and steep, but there is a light ahead, and freedom.

— Dominic Corde, in A Christmas Secret, by Anne Perry

True Fulfillment

God, Joy, Life 0

How gracious God is; how gentle with His earth-bound children!  Despite my reluctance to follow, little by little He led me deeper into His truth.  How could I know that in committing myself to God’s sovereignty I was embracing the richest love, the purest joys, the truest source of fulfillment the human heart can know?

— Margaret Clarkson, So You’re Single, p. 35