in my last post, we talked about what God says He wants — acknowledgement of Him, obedience and mercy.
Today is called Ash Wednesday in many Christian traditions. Some will have their foreheads marked with ashes to indicate their mourning over their sins and their hope that Jesus’ Work on the cross will bring God’s forgiveness.
However, not everyone can be forgiven.
This seems like a radical statement. Shouldn’t we repent of our sins? Isn’t God merciful? Wouldn’t He forgive those things for which we are truly sorry?
Yes to all those things … except there is one thing we need to do first.
We say The Lord’s Prayer. We say, “Forgive us of our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”
Matthew 6:12-13
As if to emphasize the importance of what we prayed, Jesus added,
“For if you forgive men for their sins, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”
Matthew 6:14-15
Jesus said it plainly there. That is how forgiveness works. We have to forgive everyone first. Then we can receive what we gave.
In our humanness, we might say, “That’s a big ask. I don’t know if I can do that.”
Here is where we go back to what God wants.
He wants us to acknowledge Him — accept He is God. We are not. He makes the rules.
God wants us to obey. Do what He says to do .
God wants us to show mercy.
A dictionary defines imercy as
- Compassion or forgiveness shown to others when it is well within one’s power to punish or harm.
So mercy does not mean we look the other way or try to pretend a wrong has not been done.
Mercy means we are fully aware something was wrong.
We may be fully aware we or someone else was deeply hurt because of that wrong.
We may have the desire and means to punish or harm them.
But God says, “I desire Mercy. I want you to forgive them.”
We might be tempted to say, “What about justice? What about fairness? What about righting this wrong?”
The answer to that is God will bring justice in His Way and His Time. As for us, we cannot judge. See Rule number one. God is God. We are not.
Jesus said,
“Do not judge or you too will be judged.”
Matthew 7:1
God is perfectly willing to hear our concerns . But He is the only Judge. We cannot judge. We cannot sentence. We cannot punish.
What can we do? We can forgive and ask God’s healing power to flow through all who were hurt.
We can pray for our enemies.
We can bless those who persecute us.
We can continue to follow the path of mercy.
Jesus said, “Go and learn what this means. I desire mercy!”
Matthew 9:13
