Month: November 2019

Did you know Veteran’s Day began as Armistice Day?  It was established to commemorate the end of World War I; the peace treaty went into effect on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.  Imagine how the civilians felt when the bombs stopped falling and the air raid sirens stopped wailing and they could emerge from their shelters and begin to pick up the pieces and live again. Theirs was a gratitude beyond expression.

 

The gratitude we show today is much more shallow. We might appreciate all that veteran’s have done, admire and respect them, cheer for them and buy them dinner.  But mostly we’ve disconnected their service from our safety, their sacrifice from our security. We’ve forgotten we have an enemy and they’re the watchmen on the walls.

 

If this is true in the visible world, it’s much more true in the spiritual realm.  There’s a great battle taking place all around us. We have an enemy. A Kingdom is at stake.  And God has provided a place of safety, refuge, and protection for those of us who are living in the crossfire. “Through your faith, God is protecting you by his power until you receive this salvation” (1 Peter 1:5).

 

Once we were enemies of God.  We were on the wrong side of the war.  But God “made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of [Christ’s] blood on the cross.  This includes you who were once so far away from God. You were his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions, yet now he has brought you back as his friends” (Colossians 1:21-22).  The rescue has already been taken care of by Jesus’ death on the Cross. We’re just waiting for the armistice to go into effect.

 

In the meantime, we are garrisoned and guarded by the peace we have with God. He is not our enemy, and He has forgiven our trespasses against Him. So we don’t have to be afraid of Him or what He allows to take place in our lives.  Instead, we can give our anxieties and worries over to Him because He cares about what happens to us (1 Peter 5:6).

 

Let Peace be the sentinel of your minds so that anxiety and fear cannot return and take up residence. Let Him be the fortress in which you take refuge.  Give truth, honor, excellence, loveliness, grace and kindness the run of the house (Philippians 4:7-8). Focus your attention on enjoying their antics, listening to their laughter, and be not afraid of the enemy at the gate, for he is not God.

 

God is our Refuge and Strength [mighty and impenetrable to temptation], a very present and well-proved help in trouble.  Therefore we will not fear.  Psalm 46:1-2

My father-in-law owned a cleaning company for many years.  Some of the worst jobs were the “trash outs.” If you’ve ever watched an episode of Hoarders, you have an idea of what might be involved.  The cleaning service empties and sanitizes the entire house. Hazmat suits and masks are involved.  You can bet that although the technicians are there to clean, they end up covered in filth.  If you don’t empty your trash one week, it might not be a big deal.  But if you continue to let week after week pass without attending to your mess, it doesn’t take long before there’s a whole lot of junk piled up.

 

Sin is a lot like that.  It makes an enormous mess.

 

And I think forgiving someone who has injured you in their sin is a lot like the cleaning crew that wades into the muck to clean it up.  Forgiveness isn’t a light and easy thing, the stuff of angel wings, birds, flowers and sunsets. Instead, forgiveness requires that we intentionally enter the sludge and offer to pull the other person out.  And that means we’re going to get dirty in the process.

 

I know this is true because of Jesus.  He left heaven, where all is as it should be, and came to earth, where all is definitely not as it should be.  He waded right into our mess to clean it up and He wound up covered in it from thorny-crowned head to nail-pierced feet.

 

Even Jesus looked at the Cross and said, “I don’t really want to go there.” True forgiveness is costly. So don’t be discouraged if forgiving someone doesn’t come easily.  It’s not natural. It’s a God-thing, a miracle really. Something only God can do.

 

If it’s hard and messy and not very much fun, why would we even try to do it?  Why would we forgive someone who has thrown their waste all over us?  Look at what God says in Colossians 3:12-13 – “Since God chose you to be the holy people whom he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience (these are your hazmat suit).  You must make allowance for each other’s faults and forgive the person who offends you.  Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others” (comment added).

 

I think that’s the answer – because God didn’t condemn you to die but instead plowed right in to rescue you.  He had compassion on you. He treated you with undeserved favor. He didn’t insist on keeping Himself clean while you were being buried under a mountain of your own garbage.  He withheld His anger. He was willing to try and try again to reach you. And most important of all, He saw all your junk and He loved you with an everlasting love anyway. That is what makes forgiveness such a powerful thing, strong enough to wash away the stain of any sin.

Purify me from my sins, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. Psalm 51:7