Daily Manna from Heaven

“And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.” -Mark 11:25

Of the four Gospels, none is more to the point and straightforward that the account of Jesus’ life as rendered by Mark. Because of his close relationship with Peter who, himself, was a pretty blunt, leave-nothing-unsaid sort of a person, many scholars believe that Mark simply reflected Peter’s thoughts.

With that in mind, may I remind you that some of the most uplifting, positive words of Jesus are also recorded by Mark? For example, Mark tells about the time Jesus was talking with the disciples and said, “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours” (Mark 11:24). Then Jesus said, “And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins” (v. 25).

Ponder those words, “When you stand praying…forgive…” “Just a minute.” you may be thinking, “What does God have to do with my relationship with other people?” In one word, everything! Prayer reflects a vertical relationship between you and God, but forgiveness is a picture of the horizontal relationship between you and someone else.

Jesus is saying that personal, answered prayer is conditioned upon your relationships with others as well as with God. But that’s not the way we like it. We prefer to get what we want from God at the same time we snub people or are angry and bitter with them. But it doesn’t work.

Immediately after Jesus gave the disciples the prayer we know as The Lord’s Prayer, He made this statement: “For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins” (Matthew 6:14,15).

You can’t have it both ways. If you want God’s forgiveness, you must learn to forgive others. If you want God to answer your prayers, you have to turn loose of the bitterness and let Him deal with some situations.

Question: Why is it so difficult to do this? The answer is that you feel more in control, more in charge, when you are filled with anger. But the very opposite is true. We also feel that forgiving someone is a matter of weakness, a giving in to the other, capitulating. But it is none of these. It is turning loose; it is letting go.

The Bible teaches that to forgive someone is to give up your right to hurt that individual because he hurt you first. It isn’t letting the person off the hook, but turning him over to God. And believe me, when you do this, the burden lifts and the anger and hatred in your heart is replaced with God’s love.

A rabbi who had lost his family in the Holocaust said that he forgave Hitler for the horrible loss he had sustained because he chose not to bring Hitler to America with him. That’s wisdom. In their book How to Forgive When You Don’t Know How,” authors Mary Grunte and Jacqui Bishop write, “When you forgive, you reclaim your power to choose. It doesn’t matter whether someone deserves forgiveness; you deserve to be free.”

Should you take time to do a study of how the word forgive is used in the Bible, you will discover that in the vast number of occurrences, it relates to an individual’s response to wrongs that others have done to him or her, rather than to seeking God’s forgiveness for what the individual has personally done. It includes wrongs done by husbands and wives, by brothers and sisters, by business associates, by neighbors and by friends. Alexander Pope once wrote, “To err is human, to forgive divine.” He was right.

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“The preceding material was written by Dr. Harold J. Sala, and is copyrighted. Reproduction for sale or financial profit is prohibited. Permission to reproduce this article was granted by Guidelines, Inc.”
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“I am happy, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance. For you became sorrowful as God intended and so were not harmed in any way by us. Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.” -2 Corinthians 7:9-10

“To deny sin is bad news, indeed,” writes John Alexander. Continuing, he says, “The only good news is sin itself. Sin is the best news there is, the best news that there could be in our predicament. Because with sin, there’s a way out. There’s the possibility of repentance. You can’t repent of confusion or psychological flaws inflicted by your parents—you’re stuck with them. But you can repent of sin. Sin and repentance are the only grounds for hope and joy, the grounds for reconciled, joyful relationships.”

Did you notice the phrase, “There’s the possibility of repentance”? “Just a minute,” you may be thinking, “what does repentance have to do with forgiveness? I thought that when God forgave me, He just wiped the slate clean and that was all there was to this business.” Scores of people consider forgiveness to be a kind of “I’m OK; you’re OK, too” sort of business with God, whereby we acknowledge our failure and God forgives us. Is that an oversimplification?

First, let’s define our terms. The Greek word for repentance means “a change of mind,” and the word is used throughout the Bible in relationship to the transaction of genuine forgiveness and restoration. For example, John the Baptist preached a simple Gospel. “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near,” he cried. And Jesus proclaimed the same theme. Following the 40 days of temptation, Jesus began His public ministry. “From that time on,” says Matthew, one of his biographers, “Jesus began to preach, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near’” (Matthew 4:17). The disciples of Jesus proclaimed the same thing, “They went out and preached that people should repent,” says Mark 6:12.

On the day of Pentecost, Peter stood and boldly cried, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins” (Acts 2:38).  Throughout the letters of Paul, the same theme continues. In fact, when Paul wrote to the Corinthians, he stressed there are two kinds of sorrow over wrongdoing: that kind that comes because you get caught, an embarrassment which causes you to lose face, and authentic repentance which is a deep sorrow for wrongdoing which leads to change.

OK, we acknowledge that this element of repentance seems to be missing from our thinking today. It’s been replaced with a kind of forgiveness which makes us feel good about ourselves, the kind that makes us acknowledge wrongdoing but with no real sorrow attached to it. But here’s my question. Is this kind of forgiveness genuine? Or put another way, can there be real forgiveness without repentance?

Not if you believe what the Bible says.  Biblical repentance, contended John Woodbridge, includes five concepts:
1. A change of mind or thinking.
2. A deep sorrow for wrongdoing, the kind that David had following his affair with Bathsheba.
3. The confession of sin.
4. A forsaking of wrongdoing which involves a clean break with what you know to be wrong, and
5. A turning to God, who alone offers pardon and strength to do right.

A wayward son wanting to come back home wrote his father and said, “Dad, if you and Mom can forgive me, please tie a small white flag to the fence out front of the house, and I’ll know it’s OK to come back. But if there is no white flag, I’ll not come in.” To his surprise the lad saw not a white flag, but a white bed sheet flying in the breeze.

Of one thing you can be certain. God is far more willing to extend forgiveness for your wrongdoing than you are to turn from your sin and to embrace it. Think about it.

(Authored By Dr. Harold Sala. Permission to reprint this article was granted by Guidelines.com)

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“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” -2 Corinthians 5:21

“If our greatest need had been information,” read a Christmas card I received, “God would have sent us an educator. If our greatest need had been technology, God would have sent us a scientist. If our greatest need had been money, God would have sent us an economist. If our greatest need had been pleasure, God would have sent us an entertainer. But our greatest need was for forgiveness, so God sent us a Savior.”

When an angel appeared to Joseph, who was then engaged to be married to Mary, the message was, “And she [Mary] will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name JESUS, for He will save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). Today, though, it is the link between our sin and a Savior which has grown hazy and obscure.

Focusing on our greatest need, though, is the problem, because this forces us to admit that there is a need, and we would generally rather crawl on our hands and knees to Calcutta or roll in a bed of ground glass than to admit our human failure or wrong doing—yes, to admit our personal sin.

When Paul wrote to the Romans, he categorically said, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). His word all is completely inclusive. None is excluded. Today, however, you don’t hear much of that three letter word, sin. The attitude of the world is nobody’s perfect. So don’t worry. Be happy!”

Sin is the problem, and a Savior is the solution. Even those who refuse to call it what it is know what the problem is, but rather than accept the solution, they prefer to deny that the problem exists. Is this rational? It is about as rational as refusing to believe your doctor when he says you have cancer, or refusing to take you’re automobile into the shop when you have been notified by the manufacturer that it is defective, or ignoring the road signs which tell you the highway ahead is washed out and you must detour.

The worst kind of ignorance and rebellion is the refusal to recognize there is a solution to your problem and an answer to your need. Paul, the theologian of the New Testament, came to grips with this whole issue of man’s need and God’s solution. Almost all of his letters addressed this issue prominently. Writing to the Corinthians, he said, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). For a moment, ponder what Paul is saying: God—the creator of our universe, the one who breathed life into Adam—sent His Son into our world, and He paid the penalty for our sin that we might be accepted as righteous before God the Father.

A few years ago, I visited an inmate in prison who, in a fit of rage, had killed another man. Trying to explain how Christ, who knew no sin, paid the penalty of our sin so that we might have life, I just couldn’t get through. Finally, I put it like this: “Look, if I were willing to exchange clothes with you and take your place here in prison, and you put on my clothes and walked out the door as a free man, would you do it?” The light came on. A smile crossed his face as he said, “Sure, I would. A person would be a fool not to do that.” “Yes,” I responded, adding, “That is exactly what Christ did for you when He died.” But the consequences of ignoring what Jesus Christ did are even greater than refusing to let someone else take your place on death row. Think about it.

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“The preceding material was written by Dr. Harold J. Sala, and is copyrighted. Reproduction for sale or financial profit is prohibited. Permission to reproduce this article was granted by Guidelines, Inc.”
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So overflowing is his kindness toward us that he took away all our sins through the blood of his Son, by whom we are saved. Ephesians 1:7, Living Bible

Two teen aged boys confessed to stealing the body of an elderly woman from its grave, decapitating it with an ax and burning the head because they wanted the skull as an “oddity”. Judge Rufus Jefferson sentenced the boys to a reform school, but suspended the sentence on condition they spend their spare time cleaning up paupers’ graves in local cemeteries.

The headless body of the 81 year old woman was found by a hunter on a remote island. When the youths were apprehended they told police that they decapitated the body with an ax, threw the body in a lake, and burned the head to remove the skin. One of the youths was quoted as saying, “We just forget about it except when we try to sleep and things like that.”

There are a lot of individuals who, like the boys, would like to forget, but forgetting is not easy. Conscience is a silent sentinel who reminds us of the wrongs we have done, especially when we try to sleep. When a person has violated his personal convictions whether it is a written law or only not doing something that should have been done he feels guilty. Forgiveness is the only thing that can permanently remove that guilt.

The director of a large English mental institution was quoted as saying, “I could dismiss half of my patients tomorrow if they could be assured of forgiveness.” Another authority adds, “It has been claimed that some 60 percent of these patients are suffering in some degree from a guilt complex.” It is understood why the two boys feel guilty and cannot sleep when they have unearthed and decapitated a body from an unmarked grave. Much of the work of modern psychotherapy deals with people who feel guilty and do not know why they feel as they do.

Have you ever noticed how seriously the Bible takes the problem of guilt? In this regard Christianity is unique. It recognizes guilt as a very real and spiritually detrimental force that can and should be dealt with. The Bible says that people are guilty because they have violated God’s standard for right living. We have chosen our way over God’s way. Ours is selfish; His is loving; ours is characterized by the attitude, “What’s in it for me?”; while His is described by the beautiful words, “For God so loved that He gave.” Dr. O. Hobart Mower, a past president of the American Psychology Association, has stated that guilt can be removed only by confession and expiation.

In this, the Bible and the psychiatrist are in general agreement. Do you know that the Bible says man is guilty because he has sinned against God? It does not stop with condemnation, but reveals that forgiveness is possible. It comes as the result of confession. Forgiveness was made possible by the death of Christ long ago. Confession–acknowledging our sins and wrongdoing– is God’s psychiatry. It is His way of ridding our souls, no less than purging them, of the guilt that harasses us.

Perhaps you are thinking, “You are right. Confession is important, but isn’t it all in your mind? Wouldn’t it be just as good if you went out and confessed to a fence post?” If a fence post could grant forgiveness, I would be quick to say, “Certainly, go ahead.” But forgiveness comes not by going through the motions of telling someone how you feel, but by the authority of the person who grants forgiveness. Only God can offer forgiveness, and this is why Christianity is unique. Come clean with God. Do away with nice, polite, over the fence conversations with Him! He knows you and He offers forgiveness and cleansing to those who seek it.

Resource reading: Ephesians 5:1-21.

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“The preceding material was written by Dr. Harold J. Sala, and is copyrighted. Reproduction for sale or financial profit is prohibited. Permission to reproduce this article was granted by Guidelines, Inc.”
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