Nov 7-8 - Matthew 6:12

Jesus said,

"Forgive us our debts, as we

also have forgiven our debtors."

Matthew 6:12

Yesterday, our focus should have been on our need for forgiveness from God. (As it says in 1 John 1, "if we say we have to know soon we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.")

Yesterday, however, I made it about: how we can forgive others of their debt. I used a banking analogy to talk about getting rid of the hurts and debts that others have cost us. And in so doing, I didn't proclaim the Good News in that next sentence from 1 John: "But God, who is faithful and just, will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

Forgiving. Cleansing. Healing. Rectifying. Our bank manager, who is faithful and just, yearns to forgive. In his name, you are free!

That is what I should have focused on yesterday, but let me tell you why I didn't. It had to do with the scary next petition in the Lord's Prayer: Forgive us to the same degree that we have forgiven others. Ouch!

Jesus wants told a parable about a rich man (God) for gave a poor man (us) a millions of dollars worth of debt. But then the poor man (our neighbor) turned around and had an even poorer man thrown into prison for not paying a few pennies worth of debt. The rich man (God) was harsh and angry to the unforgiving man (us) who'd been forgiven of such a large dent that it required the cross to pay for it.

Ouch! I like the loving and faithful God. I sometimes want to pretend that God is not righteous and just! Send costs. Why? Because it destroys. It costs so much that it demanded the death of gods own Son.

Today, I'm going to let you sit here in your guilt. Contemplating the cost of sin. And contemplating the price of unforgiveness.

Tomorrow, I will talk about how we reconcile God's forgiveness and our difficulty in forgiving others. But in order to fully comprehend the freedom of grace, sometimes we have to be crushed by the holiness of God. Sometimes we need to utterly fall in worship and awe, or else we take the freedom of the cross for granted.

God forbid that Jesus spilled his blood and I am anything less then on my knees! That's our prayer for today: Get on your knees and contemplate the cost of sin.

In Christ's Love,

a guy who’s so low

that he could milk

a pregnant worm

(Is that better than being

On my knees?)