Monday the 26th

Colossians 3: ¹³Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. ¹⁴And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

 

Forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another…interesting word grievance the Greek word that Paul used was momphē  meaning blame, or my implication,  fault, the KJV uses the word quarrel. Now a grievance we understand to day as something that was done against us, however the word quarrel, dials us a little closer in to fault, or blame. It brings to mind an important piece of advice I was given once, I am sure you have heard the same….don't sweat the small stuff…..and if there is one thing I have learned, most of it is all small stuff. That is the trap that the devil lays for us. All the little grievances, the little quarrels, all the little faults that we carry around and pin on people. It is the hope of the ole' devil that we get so caught up in the details of the little things, that we allow hate….no that is to harsh, it does not even have to get to that level for the devil to win……. we allow indifference to enter our hearts, and it is from an area of indifference that we start to live our lives. That is not how we were called to live. We were called to live a life of love. Here Paul calls us to put on love, as if it is clothing, something to drape over your entire body, we are to strive to have so much love that we are covered in it. Why? Because a loving heart is a forgiving heart; and a forgiving, loving heart cares about each person they come in contact with. It is the loving heart that impacts everyone it comes in contact with. Paul drives the point home by pointing out we are not just to forgive, but we are to forgive as the Lord forgave you. Ouch! That is a tough one! We all forgive, but do we forgive completely? You all know what I am talking about, we say oh I forgive you, but we don't, we hold on to the hate, or hurt, we lay and wait for the opportunity to strike back, we speak the words of forgiveness, but we do not give the love that is supposed to come with it. We must learn that we will hurt people in our lives, and we will be hurt by others in our lives. We do not mean to, just as most do not mean to hurt us, we are human, we make mistakes and we blunder through this world bumping in to each other. We hurt, we forgive, we love, and we grow. So we must learn to forgive, but that does not mean we have to forget. This can be a hard concept to get your head around, but if we keep it in the context of Christ it helps to shed a little light on it. The Pharisees were always after Christ, he forgave them for their ignorance, but He held no malice towards them. He still spoke the truth to them, He still had love in His heart for them, and the hope that they would change their minds. As a matter of fact, if one were to come to Christ and ask for forgiveness, are we to believe that Christ would have told them, to go away? Of course not! We know that many Jews became followers of Christ. When people tried to trap Christ, and kill Him, did He hold ill will against them? No He forgave them for it. He was still very well aware of the fact they wanted Him dead, but He only held out love in return. One of the last things Christ did with His time here on earth, was to ask His Father for forgiveness for the very people who had hung Him on the cross. That is the best example of forgiving, that is the best example of living with only love to give in return. That is the best example of how we are to live draped in love. We live with a forgiving heart, fully aware of the world around us, fully aware that we might be hurt, but fully aware that the only thing that will ever beat hatred, and indifference, is love and forgiveness.

 

God Bless,

Brian