Mark 11:25 Jesus said, ‘Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone; so that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses.’
This is a very hard thing for me to think about. It's a hard thing for me to try to wrap my head and my faith around and to make it fit into my images and strong convictions that God is an endlessly forgiving God who forgives out of God's grace and not out of our deserving. If that's true, then God should forgive my trespasses whether or not I forgive the people that I have anything against. Jesus' statement here in Mark makes it seem as if my receiving forgiveness from God is dependent on whether or not I've forgiven everything I possibly can.
In an ultimate and strict and simplistic sense, I don't believe that's true. I don't believe that God would withhold forgiveness from me if I fail to forgive someone else. It's just not what the rest of Scripture and the tradition teach. But there's something very powerful and powerfully convicting about the statement anyway. Obviously, my forgiveness of others or lack thereof has very real consequences. Obviously, my forgiveness of others is something that's very important to God. And for now, knowing that is enough. I'll work on it.
In Christ,
Pastor Seth
Worship with us and receive Holy Communion 8:30 and 11 on Sunday morning. Visit http://www.allsaintspalatine.org for a current monthly newsletter and calendar.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment