Forgiven & Forgotten!

"What a tremendous gift from God it is when we are able to forgive and let go of others ills against us - forigve & forget! This is the way our Lord deals with us, when we genuinely ask for forgiveness in repentance, God forgives & it is as if we never committed the sin which made us an enemy to Him in the first place.

I read a story the other day about a young seminary professor who would always introduce his New Testament class with a story from his past.

He and his dad were close and one day he told his dad a lie which hurt his father deeply. For years this young man grew older, but let the lie go unresolved. Guilt built up inside him about the lie and eventually a sense of tremendous remorse began to knaw inside of him. So, finally he sat down and wrote his dad a letter.

In the letter, he reminded his dad of the incident which he lied to him in case he did not remember. He explained in genuine tone his remorse over the lie and asked forgiveness without any explanation or excuse for the lie. The man went about his days when fairly quickly a reply letter came from his dad. It simply read, "Sure I remember the incident and YES your are forgiven!".

To the son this was a tremendious weight lifted from his shoulders as he had carried the weight of the unresolved lie for years. The further payoff came many years later when his mother and father both were much older, became ill, and died within a few months of each other.

He was the oldest child, so it was he duty to go to the parents home and start the process of sifting through their belongings. He ventured into the attic and found an old trunk with many momentos they had kept throughout their life together. Everything that was really precious to them monitarily was in that trunk.

As he was wiping tears away at the memories his parents had kept from he and his siblings childhood years, he came across that letter he had sent to his dad asking his forgiveness. He wiped the tears back, opened up the letter to re-read what he had written. As he turned the letter over on the backside was written in his father's own handwriting a word "FORGIVEN!" and it was underlined. His father had forgiven him and when his dad was done with something and beyond he would write it down and underline it meaning "finished".

By the letter being in that old trunk of mementos, with the word FORGIVEN written on it was his dads way of saying I have no unfinished business in this trunk. This was a tremendous gift his dad had given to him not only at the time of the reply letter, but years later when he found the letter as a treasure and the word FORGIVEN written on it. His dad had relinquished all traces of the hurt, the resentment, and the bitterness over the years.

In the same way, our heavenly Father will forgive us when we are genuinely remorseful and repentent before Him. I understand from my own experience, we sometimes need to ask for forgiveness from someone, and at other times we need to simply forgive someone and let go of the hurt and pain they might have caused. Either way forgiveness whether given by us or received by us is a gift from God to be treasured. God is here to help us in either situation.

In Matthew 6:14-15 Jesus tells us, "For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins." This is speaking about an attitude of heart and action from that attitude.

Geroge Herbert once wrote - "He who cannot forgive others breaks the brdige over which he must pass himself."

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"Follow Me!"

Matthew 8:18-22 & Luke 9:57-62

This conversation starts out somewhat honestly with “I will follow you…” I am sure Jesus replies with something like this, “Oh, really!” Jesus states to him, “You understand that the foxes have a place to live, birds have a nest to live in, but I, the Son of Man, does not even own a pillow to lay my head on at night?” We find no further conversation between Jesus and this eager man wanting to be a follower. What was the man eager to follow? Could it have been to be part of a revolution to over throw the government? Could it be that he had a vision of being in the top cabinet of this new government? Whatever the heart issue was, Jesus put it to the test immediately. Jesus knew whether this man could make it on the journey and this particular person may have been weak in the area of traveling rough. He knew the fellow would not last on the journey not knowing where he would sleep or what he would eat, so Jesus addresses the issue upfront.

Then we have the next person, who interestingly, Jesus calls out to him to follow Him. Imagine for a moment you are walking along a road beside a person you suspect is the Messiah, the Christ, but you are not sure yet. You are simply walking along silently listening as your heart is developing a love for this man. You can’t explain it to yourself much less anyone else, but you long deep within your heart to give your life to Him and follow Him wherever He goes. I can only envision this man being that way. So, Jesus looks over to him and says, “Follow Me.” This was not a question. This was a direct statement from the Lord to him, “Follow Me.” I can just see this man take a huge gulp in his throat before answering back. I am sure the palms of his hands were starting to sweat some. However, not exactly ready to commit just yet, he comes back to Jesus with “Let me first go back and bury my father.” I can only imagine some of the disciple’s mouths flung open wide. You can almost hear them muttering between them, “You have got to be kidding. Jesus just told you to follow Him and you want to go back and wait for your daddy to die so you can bury him? What a loser.” Well, that is my rendition of what the disciple could have said in today’s language. Anyway, the man’s father was most likely not dead yet or really that close to being dead. Jesus’ call to him to follow was not an open ended call for whenever he got ready to come. Jesus was asking him to drop what he was doing that day, commit in his mind and soul to follow Jesus and proclaim the gospel to the world.

Amazingly, in this case Jesus did not quickly move on to the next subject. He comes back with a further statement. “Let the dead bury the dead. You go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” I believe it is possible this man became a true follower of Christ that day. You see, Jesus called out to this man not this man calling out to Jesus. Furthermore, Jesus did not let the man off the hook easily either by telling him “Ok, you go back to your family and once your dad dies and is buried then catch up with us and you can be a part of our club.” No, Jesus tells him immediately to let the people who are spiritually dead bury the physically dead. Jesus further says, “You go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Jesus never asked him one question. He only gave this man direct commands.

The final “would be” follower blurts out loudly I am sure after watching everyone else, “I will follow You, Lord; but first let me go back and say good-bye to my family.” I call this guy “Mr. I will, but…” I am sure we can all fill in the blanks after the “but…” God has often called us out to do something for Him and all we can say is “Yeah, but…” It is human nature to want to do anything eagerly on our terms. However, God does not call us on our terms. He calls us out to follow after Him on His terms. This man here wanted to go back or look back to his family. He was not ready to follow after Jesus that day. This is not to say he didn’t follow after Christ, but the example would indicate he didn’t.

Jesus simply replied once peering into the mind and soul of this man knowing he could not follow Him with a heart so attached to his family. Jesus touches the very issue of this man’s heart and most likely many others in the crowd probably by this time gathering around. At this point in time everywhere Jesus went and started speaking people would soon gather. So, I imagine a crowd has gathered to hear Jesus. They might have even thought a miraculous healing could take place too, who knows. In this case, Jesus directly addresses the heart issue with this reply, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.” I want to say to you right here, that was an “ouch” moment. This statement Jesus comes back to this man with must have hurt deeply. This was not a little light laughing moment. I imagine complete silence in the crowd. So quiet you could hear a small worm chewing on a leaf fifty yards away. This is dead silence. We don’t find a response from the man at all recorded. I am sure the man recognized he was not really ready to commit to follow after Jesus, but being swept up in the emotion of the moment thought he needed to blurt out his desire to follow Jesus, but not thinking about what “following” really meant. Jesus was not looking for those wanting to do a two week mission trip each year in order to get there good deed in for the year. He was looking for those willing to fight the spiritual battles ahead of them. Jesus was looking for obedient men He could train and pour His life into. Jesus was looking for those chosen by His Father to come and follow Him into full time ministry.

We find ourselves at this moment dealing with three responses. Only one man was truly called by Jesus to follow after Him in this lesson. We don’t conclusively know if any of the three really followed Him at all. We do know this, Jesus calls each of us if we are hearing His Word’s this day, to follow after him. Jesus calls us to stop the consuming infatuation with this world, with all the stuff and activities society tells us we must do in order to be good citizens, but has nothing to do with furthering the kingdom of God.

When you really commit to follow Christ, you could find yourself homeless, friendless, without a family, without a job, or even your neck stretched out before an executioner. To follow after Christ requires us to not be so involved in the activities of this life we stop proclaiming the gospel of Christ and stop living a holy life. We are called to be “aliens” to this world, a very strange people. The one Jesus called to follow Him was struggling with his earthly duty above the calling to follow Christ proclaiming the gospel. Jesus does not expect us to stop being a human and taking care of our duties here, but He expects us to do it secondarily to serving Him by spreading the gospel every chance we get. We must be heavenly minded to the point some people might think we are of no earthly good. The calling on our life is to the bottom of the soul not just the surface of it.

Finally, once fully committed to the cause of spreading the gospel daily, never look back on your former life with any regrets of leaving it behind. Lot’s wife is a perfect example here of someone commanded not to look back as the city was destroyed, but her attachment to this world, the world she loved was far greater than her love and commitment to God. It is doubtful she had any attachment to God, but He did give her an option to which she failed and was consumed immediately into a pillar of salt as Scripture tells us.

The call from Christ is open to all. Repent of your sins, turn from the wickedness and wrongful life you have lead up to this point away from Christ and place your complete and total trust in Jesus Christ and follow hard after Him. Don’t look back, don’t worry so much about your future, God has everything already planned out and He is in full sovereign control. Once you have placed your lives in the hands of Christ put your hand to the plow without any regret and go forward without allowing your heart to look back.

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