Give What You Need | The Worshipper's Thought of the Day

One thing that never ceases to amaze me about Christians is how we want forgiveness for ourselves, yet we're so unwilling to forgive others.  Be it matters concerning capital punishment, marital infidelity, illegal business transactions, rape/molestation or countless other indiscretions, it seems the self-professed people of GOD have a major problem with extending THE SAME FORGIVENESS they need.  What further bothers me is how we have become so adamant about our decisions to hold trespasses over the heads of others.  When it comes to dealing with those who have done wrongly, we find it MUCH easier to maintain grudges, nurse offenses, spread gossip and act funny with people.  This ought not be so among the redeemed of the LORD!

It was several occurences this week as well as an online exchange with my brother-in-law that really got me thinking about this.  As I recently stated in Part 9 of "The Four Imaginary Imprisonments," ALL SIN IS REBELLION.  It's humorous to me how GOD makes no degrees of distinction between acts of sin, but church congregants the world over believe in "big sins" versus "little sins."  Moreover, this mindset creates a culture in which Christians find it easier to forgive "certain" sins than others.  Nevermind that the wages of sin--irregardless of its nature--is death, according to Romans 6:23.  We feel entitled to categorize sin by our own perceived severity of it as well as determine whether we can grant offenders forgiveness. Christians have certainly got some nerve!

Last time I checked, Jesus Himself said to forgive and we'll be forgiven (Luke 6:37-38). Why? Because as it says in verse 38, which is a continuation of the sentence started in verse 37, that what you give is what you get--pressed down, shaken together and running over will it be given back to you BY MEN.  We can proudly ride high on our moral horses NOW, but the day is coming when us looking down at people from our saddles will become us being forced to look up to them from the ground.  No one is incapable of sinning, and no one is without closeted skeletons.  So instead of trying to decide IF we can forgive others, we might want to just go ahead and forgive based on the sheer fact that--AT SOME POINT--we'll need the forgiveness of people. Let's face it: better to give NOW what we know we'll need LATER than need it later and not get it because of the seeds of unforgiveness we've sown.