Fading of forgiveness

Hey there!

I haven’t watched/listened yet, but I have an initial thought about the topic before I watch/listen:

I would contend that forgiveness has never been a popular thing in the human race. It’s why Jesus’ teachings on forgiveness are so hard…and why they’re so necessary.

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Very good. You can read it online. I haven’t read the whole thing myself yet.

Indeed. And one can also wonder if anger has ever not been popular!

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Certainly more popular than love. Especially when that love is directed toward enemies.

It is my humble opinion that Jesus’ radical teaching about love and forgiveness is so contrary to human nature that He simply must have taught it, even if we take the most skeptical position that the Gospels aren’t all that accurate in recording what He taught (a position I do not hold, of course). And it also suggests that He is more than human, to me at least.

One thing I think that was kind of missing is that there is a big difference when your enemy and anger is directed at a individual versus directed at a system. You can forgive a person. You can’t forgive a system. You can just overcome it or be eaten by it.

A podcast I listen to by Pastor Peter Laws is “ Creepy Cove Community Church” and it’s a podcast set up as a Sunday sermon that takes place in a town full of horror. I really enjoy it. It’s not for kids obviously. But it’s set up is a skit involving iconic horror monsters followed by a sermon.

This particular sermon is about forgiving your enemies. The skit is Freddy Kruger and Jason.

Yes, I already had it open. :slightly_smiling_face:

 
That’s kind of a fun example of unity in diversity within the Body of Christ – an interview cited by a Mennonite between two Catholics, one a bishop, about an article by a Presbyterian, and all concurring.

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Too bad that we couldn’t all walk into a bar together … Or at least change a lightbulb or something!

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Fall down stairs and record what each said? :slightly_smiling_face: (I don’t know what the Mennonite said – maybe he held his peace. :slightly_smiling_face:)

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Good point. Or a group or groups of individuals within said system, even the leaders as representative of a group. I can think of some YEC leaders that I would have difficulty forgiving, for example… there but for the grace of God go I. Maybe the best we can do sometimes is distance or dissociation?

He probably got up, and looked around, embarrassed, to see how many people saw the whole spectacle.

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Most of us can probably contemplate forgiving enemies who are now repentant and have some regret or remorse for what they did. But the kicker for Christ is that he forgave them while they were still mocking and murdering him!

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Do not let the sun go down on your wrath, is a command that keeps us safe from falling into the trap of the devil. The reason we are told to do this is because of the preceeding verses.

Eph 4:21Surely you have listened to him and have been taught by him, since truth is in Jesus. 22 Regarding your former way of life, you were taught to strip off your old nature, which is being ruined by its deceptive desires, 23to be renewed in your mental attitude, 24 and to clothe yourselves with the new nature, which was created according to God’s image in righteousness and true holiness. 25 Therefore, stripping off falsehood, “let each of us speak the truth to his neighbor,” for we belong to one another. 26 “Be angry, yet do not sin.” Do not let the sun set while you are still angry, 27 and do not give the devil an opportunity to work.

We are told to clothe ourselves with our New Nature which was created according to God’s image in righteousness and true holiness. Those who have truly trusted in Jesus have a new nature, the nature of God. It all goes back to the cross of Christ where we died with Him and have been risen with Him. We have received a new nature, born again from above, a new creation in Christ. This is why we forgive, because we are children of God through the cross of Jesus. As He is, so are we in this world. It is essential that we understand what God did through the cross. We have died to sin, our old passions and fleshly activity. It is no longer we that live but Christ in us. The foundation of our new life in Christ, is our death and resurrection in our union with Him. We have the power in Christ to tread over all the power of the enemy. We can freely forgive because the mercy of God has been shown to us in Jesus. Freely give, for freely we have received.

We died with Christ and through that we have died to the ways of this world. So let us put off bitterness and show love to those that hate us and do evil to us. For we are sons and daughters of God, in Christ.

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In my experience, anger is always a secondary emotion. We become angry when we are experiencing another emotion that we don’t want to feel or don’t want to admit to.

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