Amazing to me, how I can preach something and understand it and then read it again and feel like God has reapplied it to my heart. After a very rough Monday a friend recommended to me that I read 1 Peter to help me reflect on what I am going through. It really got to my heart.
Last night in my sermon, actually the last two weeks, I have made the statement that the Gospel demands that you forgive in all circumstances. Any person walking down the street knows that if they do something wrong, they should go ask forgiveness, but the Gospel says if someone has wronged you go and forgive them. Now my counseling degree gives me the weight to understand that forgivenesss can look many different ways, so I understand the complexities, but forgive.
So Peter says, "For this is a gracious thing, when, mindul of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God."
Earlier today I was saying to Karin that I feel like a lightening rod, and whenever something goes down in order to distract from the heart of the issue it ends up being misdirected toward me. So I said to Karin, there is plenty that I do wrong in my life why not pay the price for that rather than being blamed for all this untrue and inappropriate things.
That is not Gospel thinking. I should celebrate these hardships. God really has done an incredible work in my life, and grace abounds in areas that I never thought it would. So when I am wrongly blamed, suffer, and get accused of things that are untrue the time is not to wallow or run, but to throw a party and realize this is what I have been called...because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example so that you might follow in his steps.
Perhaps I will continue to be surprised by this, probably because it often comes from those we love the most. As I told someone in our church tonight, we don't let our enemies get close enough to do any real damage, it is those we love the most that are near enough to rip vicious blows against our soul. The same was true of Jesus, his disciples abandoned him, God was silent and eventually unleashed his wrath upon him. Yet that did not stop Jesus from accomplishing the greatest act of love the world will ever know.
Last night in my sermon, actually the last two weeks, I have made the statement that the Gospel demands that you forgive in all circumstances. Any person walking down the street knows that if they do something wrong, they should go ask forgiveness, but the Gospel says if someone has wronged you go and forgive them. Now my counseling degree gives me the weight to understand that forgivenesss can look many different ways, so I understand the complexities, but forgive.
So Peter says, "For this is a gracious thing, when, mindul of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God."
Earlier today I was saying to Karin that I feel like a lightening rod, and whenever something goes down in order to distract from the heart of the issue it ends up being misdirected toward me. So I said to Karin, there is plenty that I do wrong in my life why not pay the price for that rather than being blamed for all this untrue and inappropriate things.
That is not Gospel thinking. I should celebrate these hardships. God really has done an incredible work in my life, and grace abounds in areas that I never thought it would. So when I am wrongly blamed, suffer, and get accused of things that are untrue the time is not to wallow or run, but to throw a party and realize this is what I have been called...because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example so that you might follow in his steps.
Perhaps I will continue to be surprised by this, probably because it often comes from those we love the most. As I told someone in our church tonight, we don't let our enemies get close enough to do any real damage, it is those we love the most that are near enough to rip vicious blows against our soul. The same was true of Jesus, his disciples abandoned him, God was silent and eventually unleashed his wrath upon him. Yet that did not stop Jesus from accomplishing the greatest act of love the world will ever know.
posted by michaelstevensrev at 10:49 PM
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