Forgive For Health

“It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. Instead we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood. For Moses has been preached in every city from the earliest times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath.”

Paul knew that other Jewish Christians might try to impose the harsher requirements on new Gentile converts, so he wanted to ensure that entire church was aware of what God’s true requirements are.

God can and does save whomever he wants; that is, whoever will accept his offer of salvation. Christ’s sacrifice for us on the cross at Calvary shows God’s forgiveness of even Gentile sins. It’s ironic, and even sad, that God forgives us, but we won’t forgive each other.

I’ve heard people say, “I can forgive a lot of things, but not THAT.” But Jesus told his disciples when they asked him how to pray, to ask the Father to forgive our trespasses against him as we forgive those who trespass against us. God set the bar high for forgiveness — our own. We are told to forgive all trespasses against us, not just the ones that don’t bother us very much. Instead, we like to carry grudges, even though the people we’re angry at no longer know or care that we’re angry at them. Have you ever noticed that?

Someone does something to us that really makes us angry, and we let it fester inside us. Each time we see that person, they seem to be oblivious to it. They’re having a great time being happy, and we’re making ourselves more miserable by being even angrier at them for not apologizing to us for what they did. Years, even decades, later we see people who are still angry at a former friend or even a relative who did something to them.

All you need to do is mention the person’s name, and the story comes flooding out as if it happened just yesterday, “Him? Let me tell you what he did to me! When we were playing in the sandbox in kindergarten….”

Abe Lemmons was head basketball coach at the University of Texas for years. One day he was asked if he was bitter at the athletic director (Texas Athletic Director Deloss Dodds) who fired him as the Longhorn’s basketball coach, he replied, “Not at all, but I plan to buy a glass-bottomed car so I can watch the look on his face when I run over him.”

We love carrying our grudges, but if God will forgive us based on how we forgive others, do we really want God to say to us on Judgment Day, “I can forgive a lot of things, but not THAT”?

Pastor Ray Stedman tells the story of some Americans who were stationed in Korea during the Korean War. While there, they rented a home and hired a local Korean boy to cook and clean for them. These Americans were a bunch of jokesters, and soon they began to take advantage of the young boy’s naiveté. They’d smear Vaseline on the stove handles so that when he’d turn the stove on in the morning he’d get grease all over his fingers. They’d put little water buckets over the door so that he’d get drenched when he opened the door. They’d even nail his shoes to the floor during the night. Day after endless day, the little fellow took the brunt of their practical jokes without saying anything. No blame, no self-pity, no temper tantrums.