Hello everyone
Have you taken time this week to rest and revel in the love of God? Let’s not allow busy-ness to eat into our special moments … God’s worth the time together
Here’s today’s nougat June 6
But it is you, a man like myself, my companion, my code friend, with whom I once enjoyed sweet fellowship as we walked with the throng at the house of God. Ps 55:13-14
The sting of betrayal is never easy, it often reaches in and flattens friendships, destroys one’s confidence in self and humanity, and paves the way for doubt and second guesses.
Many of us have faced betrayal before, perhaps even more so, at the action of a friend. If so, what was or first thought, what was our emotional state? What type of friendship do we maintain with that (former?) close friend? The psalmist’s distress speaks to us across centuries and was even prophetic in arresting to Judas’s kiss of death. … But what of Jesus’s reaction?
He, our exemplar, opted to use Judas’s apparent betrayal to speak grace, healing, forgiveness and restoration not only to his twelve friends who all became magicians and disappeared (they watched his trial and crucifixion from afar), but Jesus further fast talked/tracked into the future and sight forgiveness for us all!
Wow! Could it be that rather than wallow in the hurt caused by a close friend, you and I are called instead to forgive, now and in the future, this and other offences, the “traitor” and others to come? Uhh … yes
Otherwise, our witness is said to be just like that of any ole body out there. Radical love begets even more radical forgiveness.
Are we ready for radical love?
Blessed weekend …
