Jesus, there is a great joy in KNOWING OF Your complete and utter desire and ability to both forgive AND forget. ALL I HAVE TO DO IS ACKNOWLEDGE MY MISTAKES and poooooooof!, You are satisfied to redeem me into Your perfect fellowship and my mistakes are history. My biggest obstacle is remembering to acknowledge them. I repeat some mistakes over and over and over, reminding myself and others who are trying to endure me, that I do them. It's the repetitious ones that are the most difficult. I await Your deliverance for them, one day at a time. I also, have grown better, quicker, faster, more skilled at forgiving and forgetting IN YOU, over the years. If someone offends ME, I'm more instantaneous to forgive them. That HAS TO BE YOU IN ME, thanks, Jesus. If they don't repeat the offense, I likely WILL forget it altogether. Problem with that is the same, though. It's the repeated, hurtful offenses that are the biggest pain. I might be getting faster and faster at forgiving the offenders, but that makes them feel bad. And, they, and me, need to be able to forgive ourselves. THE KEYS to life, in my opinion. The mercy and forgiveness keys.
Blood shed. It is the cost. Someone needed to bleed out to satisfy the innate JUSTICE of God. Anyone who has "bled out" emotionally, socially, spiritually or financially to pull a friend or family member through their hell of some sort or another, knows just a fraction of Your position on that cross. Oversaid and overdone are the statements of how YOUR INNOCENCE did not deserve the punishment. I suppose in contemporary lingo, we'd say, "TRANSFERRENCE" (2 : the redirection of feelings and desires and especially of those unconsciously retained from childhood toward a new object (as a psychoanalyst conducting therapy)) or "PROJECTION" ( 6 b : the attribution of one's own ideas, feelings, or attitudes to other people or to objects; especially : the externalization of blame, guilt, or responsibility as a defense against anxiety ). We fer-reakin' landed our far-flung crap all over YOU because we couldn't see or understand anything from Your point of view. We were incapable of perceiving such high love. So we surmised that Your motives were as low-born as ours through our dungheap glasses and killed You, out of pride, guilt, shame,.... flat out ignorance.... because of our FEAR of what we couldn't perceive... such a loving, life-giving, unquenchable, merciful forgiveness. What a pack of fools!
Ooo Ooooooo Ooo, I know, I know, ask me... "He's somehow convinced them that He's so good at being a lover that they all love Him, and His words, MORE than they love me and mine ! But He 'makes' me feel like crap, cause I DO lots of things MY WAY and I'm not interested in being like Him. Too much work! Too much humility, transparency, self-sacrifice and suffering. I'll never be able to be like that. I don't even want to try to! I think He's phony. He has an agenda. I know He does ! He says He's GOD'S SON ! People are BELIEVING Him. How will I rule ? How will I control? How will I manipulate? How will I get them to love me?! People just don't love me that much. He's taken their hearts, their hopes, their loyalties, their fealty ! He's done it IN GOD'S NAME ! " Sound familiar, Jesus?
So, why? Why did You command so much INFLUENCE? Were You a scoundrel who manipulated some mass hysteria that has rippled down through 2000 years? OR DID YOU INDEED HAVE THE ANSWER WE ALL SEEK?
I vote, #2. You HAVE the answer. You have tons of answers. In all these years, I've never failed to find one, if I listen and wait for it. Heck, You ARE THE ANSWER!
"Hero" ~ Skillet ~
Today, I'm focusing on transparent mercy and forgiveness. You know, well, YOU ESPECIALLY KNOW, that what's buried alive never dies. I need to be sure that I don't bury grief or love alive, either. Everything we hide has power over us. It's why I write to You so regularly for the past 32 years. We pick up my crap and turn it all around and throw a halogen on it, Jesus! It's because I'm safe with You. Safer than anywhere else. You are my 'Emotional Guardian SuperHero.' You became that when I was nutz after the war and almost everyone was afraid of me. You have never failed to include me. I have ALWAYS BEEN GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU ! You have been teaching me the anointing for BEING YOU for others, when You want me to. You have been allowing Yourself to be manifest in others FOR ME, more and more, too. THe absolute perfection of the way that You DO THAT is unmatched, probably unmatchable. There really never IS any REAL LOVE that doesn't have Your name tattooed all over it. You are the only one who CAN create it all without agenda... only one agenda... to glorify the Father in Heaven. These days, everytime someone loves me, I thank You ! I SEE YOU in them. No men ever get close to that loving. WE flat out suck at it.
" 4:12 " ~ Switchfoot ~
The Message (MSG)
3-4 If you, God, kept records on wrongdoings,
who would stand a chance?
As it turns out, forgiveness is your habit,
and that's why you're worshiped.
7 O Israel, wait and watch for God—
with God's arrival comes love,
with God's arrival comes generous redemption.
John 20:22-23
The Message (MSG)
__________________
Blood shed. It is the cost. Someone needed to bleed out to satisfy the innate JUSTICE of God. Anyone who has "bled out" emotionally, socially, spiritually or financially to pull a friend or family member through their hell of some sort or another, knows just a fraction of Your position on that cross. Oversaid and overdone are the statements of how YOUR INNOCENCE did not deserve the punishment. I suppose in contemporary lingo, we'd say, "TRANSFERRENCE" (2 : the redirection of feelings and desires and especially of those unconsciously retained from childhood toward a new object (as a psychoanalyst conducting therapy)) or "PROJECTION" ( 6 b : the attribution of one's own ideas, feelings, or attitudes to other people or to objects; especially : the externalization of blame, guilt, or responsibility as a defense against anxiety ). We fer-reakin' landed our far-flung crap all over YOU because we couldn't see or understand anything from Your point of view. We were incapable of perceiving such high love. So we surmised that Your motives were as low-born as ours through our dungheap glasses and killed You, out of pride, guilt, shame,.... flat out ignorance.... because of our FEAR of what we couldn't perceive... such a loving, life-giving, unquenchable, merciful forgiveness. What a pack of fools!
Ooo Ooooooo Ooo, I know, I know, ask me... "He's somehow convinced them that He's so good at being a lover that they all love Him, and His words, MORE than they love me and mine ! But He 'makes' me feel like crap, cause I DO lots of things MY WAY and I'm not interested in being like Him. Too much work! Too much humility, transparency, self-sacrifice and suffering. I'll never be able to be like that. I don't even want to try to! I think He's phony. He has an agenda. I know He does ! He says He's GOD'S SON ! People are BELIEVING Him. How will I rule ? How will I control? How will I manipulate? How will I get them to love me?! People just don't love me that much. He's taken their hearts, their hopes, their loyalties, their fealty ! He's done it IN GOD'S NAME ! " Sound familiar, Jesus?
So, why? Why did You command so much INFLUENCE? Were You a scoundrel who manipulated some mass hysteria that has rippled down through 2000 years? OR DID YOU INDEED HAVE THE ANSWER WE ALL SEEK?
I vote, #2. You HAVE the answer. You have tons of answers. In all these years, I've never failed to find one, if I listen and wait for it. Heck, You ARE THE ANSWER!
Today, I'm focusing on transparent mercy and forgiveness. You know, well, YOU ESPECIALLY KNOW, that what's buried alive never dies. I need to be sure that I don't bury grief or love alive, either. Everything we hide has power over us. It's why I write to You so regularly for the past 32 years. We pick up my crap and turn it all around and throw a halogen on it, Jesus! It's because I'm safe with You. Safer than anywhere else. You are my 'Emotional Guardian SuperHero.' You became that when I was nutz after the war and almost everyone was afraid of me. You have never failed to include me. I have ALWAYS BEEN GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU ! You have been teaching me the anointing for BEING YOU for others, when You want me to. You have been allowing Yourself to be manifest in others FOR ME, more and more, too. THe absolute perfection of the way that You DO THAT is unmatched, probably unmatchable. There really never IS any REAL LOVE that doesn't have Your name tattooed all over it. You are the only one who CAN create it all without agenda... only one agenda... to glorify the Father in Heaven. These days, everytime someone loves me, I thank You ! I SEE YOU in them. No men ever get close to that loving. WE flat out suck at it.
The greatest upshot of all, too, is I fer-reakin' CAN'T disappoint someone who already knows my future, every day of it. We only disappoint each other, because we don't know what the other will choose and how it will all turn out. So, step one, after forgiving those we love and ourselves ( for sucking at living or loving without You ), is to TRUST YOU to be working ALL THINGS..... that's __ALL__ things.... for GOOD and for Your PERFECT LOVE that knows all, heals all, redeems all, positions all, supplies all, ...... with thankful hearts, minds and spirits.
I still can't believe that all we are
And that all of our dreams are nothing more than material
Souls aren't built of stone,
Sticks and bones
And souls aren't built of stone
Psalm 130:3-4And that all of our dreams are nothing more than material
Souls aren't built of stone,
Sticks and bones
And souls aren't built of stone
The Message (MSG)
3-4 If you, God, kept records on wrongdoings,
who would stand a chance?
As it turns out, forgiveness is your habit,
and that's why you're worshiped.
7 O Israel, wait and watch for God—
with God's arrival comes love,
with God's arrival comes generous redemption.
John 20:22-23
The Message (MSG)
View commentary related to this passage
22-23Then he took a deep breath and breathed into them. "Receive the Holy Spirit," he said. "If you forgive someone's sins, they're gone for good. If you don't forgive sins, what are you going to do with them?"
22-23Then he took a deep breath and breathed into them. "Receive the Holy Spirit," he said. "If you forgive someone's sins, they're gone for good. If you don't forgive sins, what are you going to do with them?"
Love; from above and within, Yasha'