Dear trekker,
As I pen this 204th MEN (Model, Encourage, Nurture newsletter), I close up 17 years of writing, and feel as if my writing is finished. This is my final “passing of the baton!” So as God the Holy Spirit leads me to encourage you once again to receive and live the faith as “Jesus with skin on,” indulge my tendencies to “wrap it up” in God’s timing. It is time to end “passing the baton,” though the love story ends on earth only in His time. “Oh Lord, don’t let me die until I pass on the power of God to the next generation, your Might to all who are to come!” (Psalm 71:18). Going home to be with the Lord, for me, awaits!
In the midst of this final writing, one word has possessed me recently. That word is forgiveness. Have you seen the word in secular print recently? I haven’t! It is as if the word fell out of the English lexicon. Is forgiveness possible anymore? Who practices it? Who encourages it? Is it real? Does it effect anything when granted fully and sincerely? And on and on! Yet, I am haunted by the Lord from Christ’s words on the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” (Italics mine.) Surely this is one of the most sublime statements ever uttered by God or man! An innocent man, blood streaming down his face, prays for his executioners out of His everlasting love, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing!” In our sin and degradation, we carry out God‘s plan of redemption, not knowing what we are doing! But God loves us as we are, not as we ought to be. Forgiveness, what a love result! Perpetual, forever! No wonder the martyr Stephen followed his Lord as he was being stoned to death. “Lord, lay not this sin to their charge! Don’t blame them,” Stephen appealed (Acts 7:60).
Two things are at work here in the words by Jesus and by Stephen. If Jesus has asked the Father to forgive, that prayer of Son to Father is answered! Jesus died to atone for our sins. It means sins are forgiven, all sin. So the Apostle Paul said to the Ephesian Christians, “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake has forgiven you” (Ephesians 4:2). Secondly, if God has forgiven us, we must forgive others. The person who won’t, can’t or by choice chooses not to forgive is not a disciple of Jesus…assuredly! How many times do I forgive a brother…endlessly! “Seventy times seven” according to Jesus as recorded in Matthew 18:21, 22.
Yes, no one talks about forgiveness today! It is the blame game, over and over again. No one seeks to forgive, it seems! Divide and conquer! Blame one another and absolve oneself of responsibility, is the mantra.
If man doesn’t know what he is doing in God’s eyes, but acts as if he does (and is in charge), could there be a more apt description of ignorance? I doubt it. In essence, ignorance is ignoring what God has said, and then wondering (at times perhaps) why it comes out to (always) be true! Which leads to another avenue this month.
If God has said “it is finished,” it clearly is fact! We are forgiven whether we believe it or not. [It’s simply not efficacious for us if we don’t believe it.] Over and over again these last 17 years, I have said as inspired by the Spirit, the Good News is John 3:16. All we do is, 1) believe it, and 2) live it as empowered by the Holy Spirit!
May I digress a few years! I was 19 years old, a sophomore at Wheaton College and I wanted to become a Young Life leader. There was a training component. I was in it. One had to memorize and meditate on Scripture. (By the way trekker, know for sure, memorization of God‘s written word is the key opening the door of meditation!) We used Navigator training materials in those days…TMS (the Topical Memory System). In the basic package there were 108 verses, three segments of 36 verses each. One of the verses then memorized is John 20:31. “Many other signs and wonders Jesus did which are not recorded here but these are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.” (Italics mine.) I am so thankful for this approach to the Gospel. It is the Gospel of belief as empowered by the Holy Spirit. (I might add, as an aside, I am ashamed it took me 10 years to complete the training. I finally said my verses to dear friend wife laying on the beach at Waikiki during an R & R while serving in Vietnam.)
Now…a comment on Scripture! The written word of God, Scripture is to be believed and lived…acted upon! God in his infinite love gave man the opportunity, the power of choice…to love him back and follow his purpose and commandments which were given by Divine decree that flowed from the nature of God. All that is recorded in the Scriptures is true because God is and has acted out His forever nature. So what the Bible says is true, but not just because the Bible says so. It is true, and therefore “holy men of old wrote as they were inspired by the Holy Spirit of God” (2 Peter 1:21). They spoke the truth of God and recorded it (John 14:6), the story of God’s nature and decrees.
So where are we after 17 years of writing? Still at square one! The Good News, the Gospel, is God’s good news. We believe it or not. If we believe, we are alive by the resurrection power of the Holy Spirit. Nothing in Scripture could be more clear. (Trekker, read Ephesians 2:1-10 before going on.) We believe and live. Or don’t believe and put off Jesus at our own peril!
Two comments in closing…the subject “what of those who have never heard the Gospel” and in the end, we’ll all be saved…universalism? We only have what we are told in written Scripture. The truth is each succeeding generation builds on the shoulders of the previous. Be careful trekker, and realize anything beyond Scripture is a shot in the dark. We don’t know! We are responsible for what we do know. Today is the day man must choose as he hears and knows (2 Corinthians 6:2).
Trekker, thanks for being my friend all these years. We’re just beginning. Meet you at the feet of Jesus.
Your trekker friend forever,
Jim Meredith