Thursday, August 16, 2012
Genesis 50:19 But Joseph said to them, "Don't be afraid. Am I in the place of God?"
FORGIVENESS IN THE CHRISTIAN'S LIFE
What do you do when someone hurts you? You take 'em to court! You sue the pants off 'em, right? Sadly, this is how many people behave. When they are wronged, the first thing they do is try to figure out how they're going to fight back or how they're going to get revenge.
Admittedly, when someone does us wrong our sinful nature wants to take revenge. It wants to see the other person "get what's coming to him." This is why Joseph's brothers went into a panic when their father Jacob died. With Jacob gone, the brothers were convinced that Joseph was now going to get back at them for selling him into slavery so many years before.
How they had misread and misunderstood Joseph's true heart! He knew it was not for him to take revenge. He was not in the place of God, and he had no intention at all of taking advantage of his brothers or of holding that sin over their heads for the rest of his life. He knew that God and forgiven him his wrongs and he gladly extended that forgiveness to them too. He freely forgave--no strings attached.
When we forgive someone it means we don't keep bringing up the sins they have committed against us. To forgive our neighbor means that if he has hurt us somewhere along the line, we do not keep dangling that in front of him every time we see him -- as though he continually "owes" us something for doing us wrong. Nor do we tell him by our actions, "We're not quite square yet, you know."
After all, Jesus doesn't do that with us, does He? How many times have we wronged Him? Countless. Yet when we come to Him looking for His forgiveness, even expecting it, He does not say, "Sorry, I remember what you did to me last month." No, Jesus keeps no record of wrongs. He wiped them all out on the cross. He does not hold grudges. We do not have to either.
