Nougat 18

Hello

A long one, but when I saw today’s Holy Nougat™…

But love your enemies, and do them good, and lend, never despairing; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be sons of the Most High: for he is kind toward the unthankful and evil. Be ye merciful, even as your Father is merciful. Luke 6:35-36 ASV

One of the most difficult to swallow – Love our enemies. And most of us would say we don’t love our enemies. To a great extent that is genuinely true. Yet, when our enemy is one who we’ve lived and trusted for a lifetime (however long or short that season may be); turning off the love isn’t always so easy. Sometimes, we stay committed to the wrong person even into our own demise.

But I believe Jesus is talking about loving someone who has betrayed us in the worst possible way. (And again this is one of those that each of us must define on our own, for ultimate betrayal varies on an individual basis). When that has happened, trusting others becomes difficult, opening up to others may sometimes be painful, and – in extreme cases – we might find that it affects our willingness to trust God.

I’ve carried the burden of betrayal with me for lifetimes. Betrayals against my own self and on behalf of others. They were fetters. It affected my relationship with Christ and I wasn’t even aware. I gave lip service to letting go, but could not vocalize the concept of forgiveness.

But God

It dawned on me that as long as I was fiercely holding on to the hurt, I was authorizing the enemy to govern my life. Moreover, God’s forgiveness quotient towards me would be compromised remember, in the prayer module given by Jesus our forgiveness from God is DIRECTLY PROPORTIONATE to our willingness to forgive. Something had to give. Or rather, Someone. It could only be me.

So then, I rationalized it – I was NOT going to hell on behalf of Those people. Nope. Not at all. It may have been a start but my motives were messed up. Even so, I wallowed in unrighteous benevolence for half of a lifetime, convinced of my generosity to my offenders.

But God’s grace

I received a gift more precious than jewels. Jesus allowed me to see two things, actually three.

1) I got a glimpse of the stench of my own sins, and Jesus’ Blood purifying me

2) God exposed me to the value of my offender – Christ-full, just like me. And I realized that God’s love was just as real for those persons as it was for me. Humbling

3) Christ revealed layer by layer the hypocrisy of my actions. To say such a person or another isn’t worth my descent to hell denied the persons of their humanity and me of my sincere salvation in the process.

And, if God loves Those people, then the truth is they are TOO PRECIOUS for me to allow a few offences to be the deterrent for their salvation, especially since they did not KNOW of their offences.

Humiliating.

Life-transforming

So there we all are, with these offences we’re lugging around. Yet Jesus offers us the chance to discard the yoke which unforgiveness brings, and enjoy the rest of Life.

Each of us is at the crossroad daily. I still struggle with wanting the person to acknowledge their faults. But truly, it isn’t important. Aren’t there far more life affirming gifts for us to share? Oh yes there are. Furthermore, we only grant some folks that burden of our unforgiveness. There are others who’ve done worse, and it meant nothing to us.

God’s treasure of forgiveness is ours for the taking. If only we choose to Love our enemies

We are at the crossroads today

In Christ’s love and grace . . .