The (Sometimes LONG) Journey to Forgiveness

18 10 2011

Tuesday Re-mix -

True confession: when I teach forgiveness, I often oversimplify it, making it appear much easier than it is.  I do that, I think, because God’s Word to us about forgiveness is clear: “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” Eph. 4:32.  God’s forgiveness of us became immediate 2,000 years ago, with Christ’s proclamation on the cross: “It is finished.”  Therefore, our forgiveness of others is likewise supposed to be immediate.  But in reality, “supposed to” and “is” are two very different concepts.

That’s why I am so very encouraged to see one of my heroes, Joseph, struggle with the journey to forgiveness.

When Joseph sent his brothers back home to get their youngest brother (Benjamin) and return with him, Joseph kept one of his brothers in prison.  We don’t know for sure how long it took for them to return, but we know it was at least “seasons”, more likely years.  Think about that… for that entire period of time, while Joseph pondered how he would respond when he next saw his brothers, one of those brothers sat in his prison.  Every day, day after day after day, Joseph went to work knowing that his brother was sitting in his prison.  And every night, Joseph slept in the comfort of his own home, knowing that his brother was sleeping in his prison.  That went on for at least months, more likely years.

He could have “made himself known” to that brother at any time, the way he would eventually “make himself known” to all of the brothers together.  But he did not.  His brother sat in prison all the time Joseph pondered forgiveness.  For Joseph, getting to forgiveness was a long, long journey filled with suffering and hardship.  And sometimes, our own journey to forgiveness is like that.  In fact, the deeper the woundedness and betrayal, the more “suffering” we must go through to get to forgiveness.

My friend, Marla, who facilitates the “Considering Forgiveness” support group in our Heart 2 Heart Ministries, has helped me to see this.  Making the promises of forgiveness sounds nice and simple on paper, but actually getting to that point in real life is messy and complicated.  And I believe it was for Joseph as well.  I find that encouraging.

So I am going to do better in my counseling on this subject.  I am going to have a new level of patience when someone says to me, “I’m just not ready to forgive yet.”  When I hear that, I am going to smile, knowing that my hero, Joseph, would have said the exact same thing as he began his long journey to forgiveness.  But I am still going to point to Joseph as an example of someone who actually made the journey.  And as you know, in order to make the journey, you have to get started at some point.

So how about your journey to forgiveness?  Would today be a good time to start?

© Blake Coffee

Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way and do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. For web posting, a link to this document on this website is preferred. Any exceptions to the above must be approved by Blake Coffee.  Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: © Blake Coffee. Website: churchwhisperer.com

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Categories : Ephesians 4, Forgiveness, Reconciliation

Now About the Gifts of the Spirit…

29 09 2011

Now about the gifts of the Spirit, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed… to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.  1 Corinthians 12:1, 7

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.  If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.  If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.  1 Corinthians 13:1-3

I wish I could see exactly what the question was from the Corinthian church.  I mean, I wish I could know exactly how they reported their issue with spiritual gifts.  The mediator in me has watched Paul call out three of the four factions in that church in the first part of this letter (“I follow Paul”, “I follow Apollos”, and I follow Cephas”), and I wonder if the “I follow Jesus” faction was representative of the culprits here, because that is the way it comes across in so many of our church conflicts today where spiritual gifts are at issue.  Somebody is making a practice of doing something that is causing all kinds of havoc in the church, i.e., ripping the church apart, and their excuse is that “I am just exercising my spiritual gift…it is the Spirit of God Himself working through me…I am just following Jesus.”  I am troubled by that for several reasons, not the least of which is that spiritual gifts are ALL ABOUT UNITY and bringing the church together…not ripping it apart.

Despite Paul’s concern that we NOT be uninformed on this subject, I think we are.  Paul was kind of a “bullet point” communicator.  But he did not have the advantage of a word processor.  If he had, maybe he would have written his lesson on spiritual gifts more like this:

  • Spiritual gifts are not just abilities; they are the Spirit Himself.  The Spirit, you see, is the gift.  When the Spirit of God manifests Himself through a believer, i.e., “peeks out” at the rest of the church from inside a believer, we call that a “spiritual gift”.
  • Your spiritual gift is not for YOUR benefit at all…it is for the benefit of the church.  It is the Spirit of God working through you for the common good, “so that the body of Christ may be built up  until we all reach unity in the faith…”
  • Even though you should “desire” the greater gifts, you do not get to choose your gift…God does.  Wouldn’t it be nice if we could tell God how He should manifest Himself through us?  Then again, wouldn’t that be scary?!
  • You may well have an opinion about what your gift is, but since it is a gift to the church and not to you, you probably do not see it as clearly as the church does.  I am always a little skeptical when someone tells me what his/her own spiritual gift is…I always listen a lot more closely when he/she talks to me about someone else’s spiritual gift.
  • If your “spiritual gift” is damaging your church (i.e., Christ’s church) or is dividing God’s people rather than bringing them together in unity, do you really think that is the Spirit doing that?  It may well be some perversion of a spiritual gift, or not a spiritual gift at all, but it is not likely the Spirit.
  • That God would manifest Himself through you differently than how He manifests Himself through me is not a bad thing…it is a good thing.  God’s idea of unity comes via diversity.  Strange but true!
  • Your spiritual gift, no matter what it is, can only be received by the church through the lens of personal relationships.  In other words, you may be the most gifted communicator of God’s Word alive today, but if the 9 people sitting in your Sunday School class do not know that you love them, then you have nothing to offer them…you are just a bunch of noise.
  • There are not just 5 spiritual gifts, or 9 spiritual gifts, or 14 spiritual gifts.  Be careful about numbering or categorizing or otherwise limiting the various ways God may choose to manifest Himself through a believer.  The lists of gifts mentioned in scripture are more likely illustrative, not exhaustive.

I am with Paul on this…I do not want to be uninformed when it comes to spiritual gifts.  These are some things I have learned so far, with the rest of a lifetime yet to go!

© Blake Coffee
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way and do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. For web posting, a link to this document on this website is preferred. Any exceptions to the above must be approved by Blake Coffee.  Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: © Blake Coffee. Website: churchwhisperer.com

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Categories : 5 Principles of Unity, Corinthians, Ephesians 4, Spiritual Gifts

The Truth Behind “It is finished.”

21 04 2011

For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.  Matthew 6:14-15

Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.  Ephesians 4:32

This is the time of year when we, as Christ followers, remember the three events which all happened within a few weeks of each other and which changed our world forever: the crucifixion, the resurrection, and Pentecost.  Within the Christian world, different groups have tended to focus more on one of these events or another.  In my particular flavor of Christianity, we tend to focus more on the resurrection than on the other two; so much so, in fact, that I sometimes lose the practical significance of either the crucifixion or of Pentecost.  This week, as an exercise to help me balance this, I have been thinking a lot about the crucifixion.

In The Gathering this past Sunday, I challenged everyone to consider their daily routine, their life and their world without the crucifixion.  What would it look like?  What would it be like?  It made for some interesting discussion, as we each began to come to grips with what the crucifixion means to us individually.

So, I have also been asking the same question with regard to the entire church.  What does the crucifixion mean for us corporately?  What would “church” look like without it?  For me (so far) the picture is both simple and scary: there would be little forgiveness and there would be little grace.  I believe that because, over and over again, scripture draws a clear and convincing connection between God’s forgiveness of us and our forgiveness of each other.  Don’t ask me to explain it theologically–I cannot–but I strongly suspect that the parable of the unmerciful servant in Matthew 18 was intended to provide that explanation.  Through the crucifixion, we have each been forgiven SO VERY MUCH.  Who are we, then, to ever be unforgiving of a brother?

Establishing forgiveness is the very reason Christ came in the first place.  Unconditional, unreasonable, unbelievable forgiveness is the very hallmark of this entire revolution we call Christianity.  It is our mantra, i.e., the identifying characteristic by which Christ followers are known.  The crucifixion gave us that…the resurrection did not and Pentecost did not (they gave us some other very important things).

So, when I read Christ’s words, “It is finished”, I can have confidence that, with the crucifixion, He really did accomplish the complete forgiveness of all sin which He set out to accomplish.  There is no way I can enhance it and there is no way I can diminish it.  Forgiveness really was accomplished once and for all with the crucifixion.  And that single event ushered in the very forgiveness which we must extend to one another as well.  They are inextricably intertwined.  The church without the crucifixion is a church without forgiveness…any forgiveness at all…for anyone and by anyone…because our forgiveness of one another is absolutely connected to Christ’s forgiveness of us as accomplished on the cross.

I like that it is like that.

It is finished.

© Blake Coffee
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way and do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. For web posting, a link to this document on this website is preferred. Any exceptions to the above must be approved by Blake Coffee.  Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: © Blake Coffee. Website: churchwhisperer.com

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Categories : Ephesians 4, Forgiveness, Reconciliation, the revolution

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