Church (Take Me Back) DevotionalSample

PARDON THE MESS

Are you familiar with the parable Jesus told in Matthew 18 about the unmerciful servant? Here’s a modern spin. Imagine you take out a loan on a brand new car. It’s beautiful. It’s your favorite color. It’s expensive. Now imagine that you’ve fallen on some harder times. You love this car, but you’re just not able to afford the payments. One morning you awaken to the sound of a tow truck in your drive way. Your beautiful new car is being repossessed. You frantically run out of the house begging the tow truck driver not to haul it away. You call the bank and plead with them saying, “I’ll make the payments, I just need more time! Please don’t take my car!”. The bank worker feels bad for you and decides they’re going to cancel your loan debt (I know this would never happen, but play along). You yell in excitement and wave to the truck driver as she backs out of your driveway. As you turn to walk towards your house, you hear your neighbor pulling out of his garage and you remember that he still owes you the $20 you lent him last week in line at the grocery store. You flag down your neighbor and stand behind their car, demanding they pay you before they leave for work. He replies, “I’m short on cash until Friday when I get paid, but I’ll give it to you then.” You refuse and wait defiantly until your neighbor pays what he owes you. 

This scenario seems like pretty ridiculous behavior, right? I mean, your debt of thousands of dollars was just wiped clean, but you’re unwilling to let your neighbor off the hook for 20 bucks? If I’m being honest, I’ve acted similarly. 1 John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness”. When I gave my life to Christ and confessed my sins, God forgave me of so much. I had a debt that I could never repay, but Jesus paid it for me. Now, even though my debt’s been wiped clean, it’s sometimes hard to extend the same grace to others who wrong me, but God calls us to forgive others just as He has forgiven us. This is not an easy task, but it is essential to the Christian life, especially within the Church. 

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, the Church is full of messy people (because we are all a bit of a mess sometimes) . We wrong each other. Many of us have experienced firsthand the hurts that can be caused within the Church community. Feelings get hurt, things are said in anger, and sometimes we begin to feel as though it would be better if we just picked up our things and left. But something beautiful happens when we choose instead to forgive: we put the Gospel on display. When you decide to “forgive one another as God in Christ forgave you” (Eph. 4:32), you show the world what the grace and love of God has done in your life, and you show that you have truly been forgiven. God has forgiven each of us so much. When we look at the cross, we should lose every excuse not to forgive others.