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Forgiven and Forgiving

written by Michael McBane

Having titled this piece forgiving I was stifled by this thought, I have not written such a word or the extensions there of, it is written by God alone. Having prefessed my words let me continue with this quote by Henry Scougal.

“The worth and excellency of a soul is to be measured by the object of its love.”

I credit my knowledge of such a complete thought to John Piper whom I have learned much from over many years.

I was meditating on the fact of God’s forgiving love and realized that my ability to do so is because I have been graced to have this love as the primary object of my love. Most of what I am, my doing and being is drawn out of the knowledge of such a love. I am astonished at times that I can in fact love God. That to me is awesome. I get to love God and His supremacy. Which then confronts me and buckles my knees in continued awe, He loves me. God loves me. This is absolute.

The failure of Christianity is at times its confession of a great morality. This confession is snobbery at its best. Morality is a stumbling block that contrives much, far to much. Is morality wrong? by no means. It though is not the foundation of our faith. The love of God is. This love is framed for us with forgiveness.

If I have been confronted with anything worth taking with me in the past ten years or so it is this...the magnitude, the depth of God’s love. It has built up around me like a range of high peaks that tower in both strength and beauty. All of my failures have been amplified I think with grand purpose so I can be depleted of me and so that I must reckon with the height, the depth, the width of the love of God. I can easily sing how high is Your love but I can rest in a divine satisfaction that is fortified with such a confidence. This is so absolute that I am now stumbled by my inaccuracy in proclaiming such in deed and in words that create life.

I am convinced that forgiveness is the bridge that will awaken a great harvest among men. But just as God has promised that He will first shake His church, we must know this. We should not fear this nor attempt to steer it. This shaking will come to confront us with His forgiveness. Many are so proud they stand on what they do daily and cannot allow this deep forgiving to encounter them beyond salvations experience. Many can not fathom a great dismantling of life to allow God to control them and guide them in all things. There is no paradigm to enter such a frontier. We travel in waters far to shallow to magnify the glory of such astonishing wonder. We should be compelled to run in the streets ripping open our shirts and pounding our chest with glee and humility. I am forgiven, I am forgiven. 

Here and then only can we be a forgiving people. We are forgiving towards ourselves because we see broadly that we are quite incapable of living righteously. We see our fallen man and then we see our adoption as sons and daughters and it is extreme in nature. It is profound, it is without true understanding.

Only from this place can we live freely and to live freely we live forgiving.  We do so because we live in the habitation of being loved by Christ.

To be forgiving is a vast frontier that is vastly unexplored by our present teaching. It is a mercy that we have not wanted to accept in the nature of how Christ has offered it. That is where we must go without reservation but I confess it is impossible in our humanity. Just as we cannot love God in our own strength we cannot forgive in our own strength.  When we see life being wreaked by the fallen insanity of mans implosion we more then likely want to castrate its ability to continue. But when God transferred us from one dark kingdom into a place that we have not even explored with any true fortitude we must also know this. We have no right to our opinion it is with out measure unless it is formed out of the forgiving love of God.

Perception in all that we do is from a place that is in Christ otherwise it is incomplete and has reservations. The understanding of these words is foundational. Unless God builds the house it is built in vain.

We would do well to ask that question with application to all that we do, all that we seek, all of our aspirations. Enough is enough. Let us become weak and allow God to be strong on our behalf. Let us be loved so that we can love as we are loved.

Can we allow this love to re create us, can we trust it with all of us, all that we are, all that we may face? 

Let us ask our hearts what is the object of our love, our affection? Let this settle upon us and let it do a work as the Holy Spirit takes away our insecurities that entangle us in this life.