Love & Forgiveness

Devotion 11 – Love and Forgiveness

Mk.11:23-25 – “For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, 'Be removed and be cast into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says…and whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses.”

It is important for us to note that after talking about the faith that moves mountains, Jesus immediately talk about forgiveness. When we live in the broken world where everyone is not perfect, we need plenty of love with forgiveness if we want to live well.

We have mentioned that our horizontal relationship is an expression of our vertical relationship with God. Christian love does not grow in a straight graph but rather like a staircase. We grow vertically towards God and then horizontally outwards, and this process is repeated. To the degree we grow towards God is to the degree we can grow outwards towards others. Our growth towards God determines our capacity to grow towards others.  Hence, our horizontal disharmony with others will cause us to be in vertical disharmony with God.  In the verses above, Jesus is implying that horizontal disharmony will even paralyze our prayer of faith.

The bible tells us faith works by love (Gal.5:6). If we harbor unforgiveness , our faith cannot be energized by God’s love. Unforgiveness is a blockage and a hindrance which prevents our prayers from reaching God.

This is especially true in family relationships. We can be praying for our spouse to receive Christ or for a change of attitude and behavior, but still harbor unforgiveness in our hearts towards them. Or we can be praying for our parents and yet cannot release unforgiveness for the hurts and pain they caused in our lives.

Heaven is filled with God’s love and mercy.  If we have unforgiveness in our hearts, our prayers will be filled with words of resentment, animosity and anger. This kind of prayer will not be like fragrance of incense to the Father, and therefore, how can it enter the holy presence of God? Any prayer that is not born out of love will be hindered from reaching the throne room of Love. 

God’s Attributes

God has two kinds of attributes: those that He possesses of Himself (intrinsic attributes, such as His perfect goodness, love, holiness, etc.), and those by which He relates to man. By nature, God is truth; but when He relates to man, it is manifested in faithfulness. God is by nature holy; and when He relates that holiness to man, it becomes justice.

Love is God’s intrinsic attributes, but when this love is related to sinners, it becomes grace and mercy. Grace is giving us what we do not deserve, and mercy is not giving us what we do deserve. And through these two attributes, forgiveness is expressed to us.

God’s very nature is love, and forgiveness flows from His nature. If you are choosing not to forgive someone, that means we have made a deliberate choice not to grow in the nature and character of God.

Our Obligation to Love

Rom.13:8 – “Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law.”

We are all indebted to love, to love one another, that is what Paul is saying. We are indebted to them for a return of love. In fact, unlike any kind of debt, this is a debt we will always owe and will never be able to pay off fully in this life on earth. As long as we are a child of God, we will never be debt free in regard to love, as we are obligated to keep on loving.  How did we incur this debt of love to others?

Rom.1:14 – “I am a debtor both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to wise and to unwise.”

 

Paul’s debt was to preach the gospel to all people. He incurred that debt because he received God’s love while yet a sinner. If we have received the same gracious gift of eternal life as a sinner, we too owe a debt of love to all people and we can only pay through the limitless overflow of God’s love for others.

 

When we begin to count up how much God has done for us in forgiving us all of our sin and assuring us of a magnificent eternal inheritance in heaven, we realize why our debt of love to one another can never be fully discharged. We need to be paying it every day, and yet we will go on owing it until the day we die. There will never come a time when we can say, "I've done all the loving I need to do. My account is all paid up now. I can retire from Christian love".

If we owe money and did not pay back, it is called stealing. In like manner, if we owe the debt of love and did not seek to repay, we have stolen from God.