12-14-2023

Good Morning All,

          Matthew 18:21; “Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?”

   Have you ever seen the movie “Men in Black”?  The original came out in 1997.  It starred Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith.  They are two special agents of a secret government agency that polices extraterrestrial aliens in the United States.  It is a science fiction adventure comedy and like any good science fiction movie; it has some neat gadgets.  The one I like is a device that looks like a big ballpoint pen.  It is a memory eraser and when it flashes, the memory of those who see the flash is erased.  The agents have special sunglasses that they put on in order to avoid being “zapped.” I wish I had a gizmo like that.  It would come in handy sometimes.

    It might help us to address one of the toughest things for us to do; to truly forgive our brother.  You hear it often, “I’ll forgive but I’ll never forget.”  Or it might take the form of “everyone gets another chance but not a third.”  There are other variations, but they all leave the impression    that forgiveness is not complete.  This might take many forms.  It might be withholding trust, expecting failure, or even putting distance between you and the other person.  This distance might be physical or emotional.

    When we withhold trust, we tend to hold on to the past and recall every single instance of pain in our relationship.  We remember how they hurt us in 1999 but we fail to remember the love they showed us at all the other times.  True forgiveness should reestablish and build trust.  If you find yourself not trusting the other person, you probably haven’t truly forgiven them.

    When we expect failure, it also shows that we are holding onto the past.  When we see a coming event and think, “well, they will hurt me again” we are expecting failure.  We do not see the other person as being capable of not wanting to hurt us.  We think they just don’t care.  We sometimes even make it so that they do fail just to show that we are right.

    The other sign that we aren’t forgiving is to maintain distance from the other person.  We may avoid them in terms of being in the same room as they are or it may be that we are emotionally distant, partly because we don’t trust, and we expect them to hurt us again, so we stay back.  All of these responses are human but are harmful.  Jesus calls us to a higher level.  His call to forgiveness is to bring about healing.  When we fail to forgive, we keep the painful wound open and an open wound is susceptible to infection, just like our relationships are.

   So, if these sound familiar to you, repent and ask God to help you change so you can help your relationship change. God wants us to have healthy relationships with each other and, for us, it begins with forgiveness.  It started with God forgiving you, now we need to forgive as well.

Father, help me to forgive others, especially those whom I love.  I struggle, Father, so send your Spirit upon me that I may see that forgiveness is healing, that forgiveness is restoration.  Be with those who especially struggle with letting go of past pain.  Help them to step beyond the imagined pain and into your wondrous light of grace and mercy.  In the precious name of Jesus, I pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret