Forgiving the Unforgivable

Welcome to Day 3 of the 7 Deadly Thoughts series! Today we’ll be discussing Merciless Thoughts.

Don’t forget to check out the introduction to this series if you missed it!

#3: Merciless Thoughts

This person is unworthy of my compassion.

We don’t have to spend much time reading the news before we begin to crave justice. The world is full of corruption, exploitation, and bloodshed. It makes the heart sick and the blood boil; we are impatient for God to make things right.

When the headlines are filled with school shootings, domestic violence, crimes against children, wars, and worse, it’s easy to fall into the trap of merciless thinking. We loudly clamor for retribution, drowning out the whispers that remind us of the mercy we ourselves received when we really deserved punishment.

I think that was Jonah’s problem.

Jonah probably spent his whole life in fear of the ruthless Assyrians. As a country, they had a reputation for terrorizing and slaughtering their enemies. So when God called Jonah to go to Nineveh ( the Assyrian capital) as a prophet, he wasn’t exactly chomping at the bit to obey. It was only after the Ninevites repented and were spared that Jonah revealed his reason for running from God’s calling:

“That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.”
Jonah 4:3

Jonah knew the power of God’s Word: he wasn’t afraid of the bloodthirsty Assyrians, he was afraid that God would forgive them. The very thought had sent him running from God, and later made him despise his own life. Even after receiving forgiveness for his disobedience Jonah didn’t want God to forgive the Assyrians for theirs.

In her excellent study The Word of the Lord: Seeing Jesus in the Prophets, Nancy Guthrie analyzes Jonah’s attitude this way: “He would rather have died than live in a world in which he did not get to decide who is and who isn’t worthy of God’s mercy” (52).

Are you tempted to think this way? Do you ever become frustrated because you believe that God is moving too slowly in bringing about justice? Do you really think that you are a better judge that he is? That your judgments are superior to his?

Merciless thoughts are prideful thoughts with a large dose of anger mixed in. Whether our desire for justice is on the behalf of ourselves or others, our longing for God to make things right becomes sinful when we sit in judgment over other people, withholding the mercy, compassion, and forgiveness that God has so graciously extended to us. This is what it means to be a Christian: to be Christ-like.

“To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable, because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.”
C.S. Lewis

Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.
Luke 6:36

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.
Ephesians 4:32

As we become more like Christ, we should be enacting justice, but not at the expense of loving kindness and walking in humility before God (Micah 6:8).

All of the other sinners in this world deserve God’s mercy, compassion, and forgiveness just as much as you do (which is to say, not at all).

Guthrie’s reflection at the end of her chapter on Jonah sum up my thoughts perfectly: “Lord, make me less like Jonah and more like Jesus. My heart is full of my own prejudices and preferences. Give me a heart to love even my enemies as you do” (56).

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Respond

How do you allow God to transform merciless thoughts into compassionate ones?

Giving Thanks for the LIttle Things

Welcome to Day 2 of the 7 Deadly Thoughts series! Today we’ll be covering Ungrateful Thoughts.

Don’t forget to check out the introduction to this series if you missed it!

#2: Ungrateful Thoughts

Why does everyone else seem better off than me?

Theodore Roosevelt said it well: “Comparison is the thief of joy.”

Comparison takes everything good in our life and makes it seems small, inadequate, dissatisfying, and disappointing. It tempts us to sin by robbing us of the joy we should have from the abundance that God has given. Christians are not called to wallow in self-pity, envy, and ungratefulness when we’re disappointed, but to rejoice, pray, and give thanks in everything:

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

And sometimes it feels impossible.

When deep fears and disappointments are dominating our thoughts, when our dreams crumble before our very eyes, and when hope seems out of reach: gratitude feels impossible.

But the bounty of God’s love for us is always greater than the poverty of our present circumstances.

But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
Titus 3:4-7

What an awe-inspiring, mind-blowing gift! Often I’m guilty of being too casual in my response to the Gospel. As someone who grew up in the Church, it’s all too easy for me to take for granted that the perfect, sinless Son of God took our punishment upon himself and died in my place.

Amazingly, gratitude in small things seems to be the key to a life filled with gratitude in spite of everything.

Gratitude for little blessings (the sweet smell of rain, the Chickadee perched on my fence, the warmth of a cup of coffee early in the morning) reminds me of the small ways that God reveals His love for me throughout every day. These small reminders prepare me to be overwhelmed by the huge, glorious mercy of Christ’s death and resurrection.

"Overwhelmed" by Big Daddy Weave

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Respond

How do you redirect your thoughts to thankfulness when you’re tempted to be ungrateful?

Divided by Pride, United in Humility

Welcome to Day 1 of the 7 Deadly Thoughts series! We’ll be starting out discussing Prideful Thoughts.

Miss this series’ introductory post? Pop over here and check it out!

#1: Prideful Thoughts

Other people don’t live up to my high standards.

Not too long ago, I fell into the sin of prideful thinking, and it was over something completely trivial.

At the time, most of my friends and family drank soda or coffee regularly to stay alert throughout the day. I didn’t care for coffee then, rarely drank soda, and somehow ended up fairly conceited about it. I was quite pleased with myself because I didn’t need “that stuff” to make it through the day. I thought I was making a good, healthy choice, and I allowed it to make me feel superior.

Now, there’s no problem with someone choosing to either enjoy or abstain from caffeine. With proper moderation, it doesn’t need to be a moral issue whether you do or don’t. My personal abstention was not sinful, but my prideful thoughts about it were.

This is true of all morally neutral convictions--decisions the Bible doesn't give us specific directions about. When we have the freedom to choose, we can become so passionate about our choices that we try to impose them on everyone. We think we know better and become frustrated when they disagree. This allows non-essential issues to become points of division.

Your area of pride may be different than mine. Maybe it’s really important to you to dust and vacuum your home every day, and you look down your nose at the dust bunnies lurking in the corners of your friend’s home. Perhaps you are passionate about being “green”, so you shake your head at homes that use disposable goods and traditional cleaning products.  These are all wonderful things to be passionate about, and if you are pursuing them to the glory of God  [1 Corinthians 10:31], more power to you! But, if your attitude becomes condescending or scornful, these morally neutral choices have become tainted with the sin of pride.

Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.
Philippians 2:3

We shouldn’t be getting into rivalries with other believers about how we educate our children, or feel conceited about how much money we save by not having cable television. In humility, we must consider others (and our thoughts and attitudes toward them) as more significant than passions that may be God-given, but are not essential to the Gospel.

The antidote to Pride is Humility.

I made it all the way through college and grad school without jumping on the coffee bandwagon. What finally did me in was having to set my alarm for 5:30am every day when I became a teacher. Over a period of a few months, I went from grabbing a coffee once a week or so, to every school day, to every single day. I’ve developed a taste for lattes, and these days I make myself one every morning. I now recognize that there are appropriate ways to use caffeine, and abstaining or indulging is nothing to be prideful about.

I eventually changed my mind about caffeine, but not all of our private passions will change. We can still get excited about jogging, cloth diapering, eating gluten-free, or homesteading, and even enthusiastically share our opinions with others! The key is that humility piece from Philippians 2:3. We must approach all of these topics with humility, and place higher value on relationships than on whether we can talk all of our friends into switching to reusable toilet paper because it's so Earth-friendly.

Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.
Colossians 3:12-14
 

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Respond

Has a personal conviction ever become a point of pride in your life? What steps have you taken be passionate, but with humility?