1438AFC091914 – My 4,357th Second Chance
Read it online here, please. http://aloha-friday.org/?p=6232
Isaiah 55:6-7 – Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake their way, and sinners their thoughts; Let them turn to the Lord to find mercy; to our God, who is generous in forgiving. New American Bible (Revised Edition) (NABRE)
“PLEASE, just give me one more chance! I know I can do it!”
How many times have we heard that one? And how many times have we thought, “What difference does it make? You’re a hopeless case.”? Why do we think we deserve a second chance anyway? Are we that confident that we can change, get better, and reform our lives? Why would we need to do that? We have free will; if we want to be “like this,” why should we want to change? Here’s what I think: Because change matters in relationships.
Somewhere along the line, at least once, you’ve been asked to mend your ways. Somewhere along the line, at least once, you’ve asked someone else to mend their ways. You’ve probably been in a situation where both of you were saying “I’ll do that if you’ll to this.” It’s how we learn to get along. We come to consensus, we compromise sometimes, we give a little to get a little. Sometimes it’s really hard to forgive even the first time. You’ve seen on the news where a relative of a person who was brutally murdered states, “I can never forgive you for what you did to my loved-one.” In our hearts, we understand, but in our minds we say, “Ummm, that’s not good. Hating tears you up inside and forgiveness is healing.” Sometimes it seems some of us are less interested in healing than we could be.
But, what if we really could change? What if we’re not really the bad, bad persons we believe we are? Would others see the potential for change in us, and take a step closer to us so we could step closer to them? On which side of a wrong do we begin to make things right? Is it our repentance or our neighbor’s forgiveness? Maybe there’s a scriptural way to see this question answered.
We can start with today’s text: Let the wicked forsake their way, and sinners their thoughts; Let them turn to the Lord to find mercy; to our God, who is generous in forgiving. So which do you think happens first? The sinner forsakes his way or God is generous in forgiving? My money’s on God being first. He’s always ready to forgive because he always loves us – no matter how messed up we are. It’s like he knows we’re going to need forgiveness, so he’s just standing there with a big bucketful of it waiting to douse our grubby sinfulness with his cleansing Grace. He is always ready to forgive. But we need to build some intentionality. I chose that word because it expresses “the quality of mental states (e.g., thoughts, beliefs, desires, and hopes) that consists in their being directed toward some object or state of affairs.” Say what? It means we have to be focused on the goal of [1] finding God, and [2] asking for forgiveness. The first one is generally pretty easy; I mean God is everywhere, right? Except maybe sometimes we crowd him out of our hearts, yeah? Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near. That’s a clue that it’s easier to lose track of God that we usually want to admit.
It turns out though that seeking God is a pretty common theme. Check these out:
1 Chronicles 28:9 – As for you, Solomon, my son, know the God of your father and serve him with a whole heart and a willing soul, for the Lord searches all hearts and understands all the mind’s thoughts. If you search for him, he will be found; but if you abandon him, he will cast you off forever. New American Bible (Revised Edition) (NABRE)
Deuteronomy 4:29 – … but if from thence thou shalt seek the Lord thy God, thou shalt find him, if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul. Authorized (King James) Version (AKJV)
Here’s a trio of references about seeking God that will help you identify something important about intentionality: 2Chronicles 15:2, 4, 15 .The key is that I need to search for him, not casually, but diligently, with my “whole heart and soul.” That’s the same way I am supposed to love him; I guess you could say I should seek him in, through, and for the sake of love.
Since he’s everywhere to be found, seeking him is simply a matter of loving him enough to admit he’s really right there with us while he may be found. So step 1 really is pretty simple. It just requires keeping our heads on straight and admitting God knows what we’re up to – all the time!
Part 2 – ask for forgiveness – is what usually trips us up because … we have to admit we were WRONG! Why is that so hard to do? Well, that one’s a three-part deal. First we have to get past our pride that makes us feel we are superior to everyone else because – although we may not always be right – we are never wrong. That’s also what did in Adam: “It wasn’t my fault! She made me eat it!” You’ve been through that enough times that I don’t need to spell it out. Next, even if we can wrestle down our pride and admit we were wrong, we have to be willing to say – and mean – that we are sorry. “I’m sorry” gets stuck in our craw for the same reason as admitting we’re wrong: Pride. It takes humility to apologize and most of us are wired to avoid humility. Lastly, we have to make up our minds not to do “that” again. We have to repent. We have to reform. We have to go back to being without that intention to gratify our egos and, in so doing, hurt someone else – or even ourselves.
So here are a few thoughts on that 3-step process:
2 Chronicles 7:14 – … if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land. New International Version (NIV)
Acts 3:19-20 – Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord; and he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you.
Romans 6:23 – The payment for sin is death, but the gift that God freely gives is everlasting life found in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Matthew 3:2 – “Repent of your sins and turn to God, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near.”
Acts 2:38 – Peter said to them, “Repent, and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
Matthew 4:17 – From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
Luke 5:32 – “I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”
Psalm 25:11 – For the honor of your name, O LORD, forgive my many, many sins.
Joel 2:12-13 – Therefore also now, saith the Lord, turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning: and rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and relents from punishing.
Isaiah 44:22 – I have blotted out your transgressions like a cloud and your sins like mist; return to me, for I have redeemed you.
Psalm 103:12 – As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
Zechariah 1:3 – Therefore say to them, “Thus says the Lord of hosts: Return to me, says the Lord of hosts, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts.” New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE)
COME BACK TO ME WITH ALL YOUR HEART, TURN FROM YOUR SIN. I WILL FORGIVE YOU BECAUSE I LOVE YOU. I FORGIVE ALL OF IT!
“Well,” you say, “that might work for some people, but God doesn’t want to have anything to do with me. I’m too much of a sinner!” Well, that’s a good beginning; you’ve confessed you are a sinner. 1 John 1:8-10 – If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us. See what I mean? And how about this?
ROMANS 2:23 – For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.
Or this? Isaiah 53:6 – All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
Romans 7:15-20 – I don’t understand why I act the way I do. I don’t do the good I want to do, and I do the evil I hate. And if I don’t want to do what I do, that means I agree that the law is good. But I am not really the one doing the evil. It is sin living in me that does it. Yes, I know that nothing good lives in me—I mean nothing good lives in the part of me that is not spiritual. I want to do what is good, but I don’t do it. I don’t do the good that I want to do. I do the evil that I don’t want to do. So if I do what I don’t want to do, then I am not really the one doing it. It is the sin living in me that does it. Easy-to-Read Version (ERV)
Romans 7:24-25 – Miserable one that I am! Who will deliver me from this mortal body? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Therefore, I myself, with my mind, serve the law of God but, with my flesh, the law of sin.
So, did I really just use up my 4,357th second chance? You probably think that’s just some random number; I chose it for a reason (which I’ll explain next Tuesday), but the number isn’t what’s important. What’s important is the time-span. Is that for my lifetime? Or is it just this year? Or maybe it’s just for today??? Here’s the thing: It doesn’t matter. There is no limit on forgiveness if we put no limit on finding God, repenting, asking forgiveness, and reforming our lives by returning to God.
Change that fosters closeness and minimizes separation matters in relationships. God’s only human Son was brutally murdered, and because God is Love and Love yields forgiveness, EVERY sin from Adam’s to ours can be forgiven. We are not only one step closer to eternal holiness as is the Life in Heaven, but also we are one step farther from being the grubby little sinners who are cleansed and healed by perfect, completely unqualified, and absolute forgiveness.
Share-a-Prayer
Please pray for the people, especially Christians (but Muslims, too) who are being oppressed, persecuted, tortured, and murdered by ISIS/ISIL. This is an unspeakably evil crusade they are conducting. Pray to God that it will take less than the blood of thousands of martyrs to stop this horror.
Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever — at your service, Beloved!
chick
Aloha Friday Messages by Charles O. Todd, III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
