“The righteous cry, and the Lord heareth and delivereth them out of all their troubles.” Psalm 34:17
“And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel” 1 Chronicles 21:1. Satan is the author of sin. Put any sin under a microscope and you will see Satan’s virus. It is very hard to keep Satan’s hand off the scales of our lives. No matter what or when, he seems to sneak in as a little fox to spoil the vines.
But thank God, we have One who knows what the Devil is up to all the time! And as a loving Father, “He knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust” Psalm 103:14.
The greatest indebtedness we have with God, is that He has redeemed us from our sins. Remember, it is our own sins we must be redeemed from or we will perish. The second indebtedness is that God redeems us from our transgressions against our brethren. There is no one who doesn’t owe God big time on this one. And the third and least of the three is that God delivers us out of the troubles that others cause for us. While we usually make the biggest fuss over someone else’s transgression against us, it is the least of the transgressions that we should be concerned about. In terms of my sins against God, the transgressions of others against me is pittance.
In view of the magnitude of our own transgressions against God, dwarfing the transgressions of others against us, we have the great teaching of Matthew 18:21-35. We might be inclined to forgive our brother or sister if they do us wrong on an occasion. But if two or three things happen to us, we begin to think of ourselves as a martyr that has become everyone’s fair game, that there is some great conspiracy out to get us, and that we are being abused beyond what Christian fellowship should tolerate.
Brethren and sisters, please observe the discourse between Christ and Peter on this painful subject, Matthew 18:21-22 “Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.” Apparently they had problems back then, too! JESUS SAID, not seven times, not seventy times, but seventy times seven, which is FOUR HUNDRED NINETY! WOW! This is the standard of Christian fellowship! This is what makes enduring Christian fellowship. And may I point out, this is what gives the needed depth to Christian fellowship. For it takes the grace of God working in our hearts to mortify fleshly passions and tempers, unto finding real spiritual grounds to respond to our brethren on these certain occasions as God responds to us on a regular basis in forgiving us our sins. Unless we follow Christ in doing this, we will not find a fellowship that is deep enough with our Christian brethren, but we will just be constantly uprooted by the winds and waves of human relations (imperfection). Aren’t you glad Christ forgives us more often than seventy times seven?
Christ requires that we forgive our brethren–“But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespass.” Mark 11:26 If we don’t do this, we are making a lot of trouble for ourselves and everyone else! Just as we can appreciate how essential God’s forgiveness of our sins is, we must appreciate how necessary and meaningful our forgiveness of our brethren is unto the cause of Christ. “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” John 13:35
THANK GOD FOR HIS FORGIVENESS BY FORGIVING ONE ANOTHER!
SHARING
