Thomas loves to play baseball. At five, he’s excited about the prospect of joining a team in the spring. In the year or so he’s been practicing at home, he’s grown more coordinated. Having been to a fair number of local minor league games, he has learned the positions and much of the game. Catcher is his favorite. His competitive nature means he’s constantly keeping score and being older naturally means he will win. He runs to tag his younger brother Timothy out every at bat.
At two and a half, Timothy is solid and naturally athletic. He has a mean throw and he can hit the ball a country mile. He is a home run hitter. He swings for the fences every time. He is not satisfied with hitting the ball. He wants to hit it a long way before he runs and he hates for Thomas to try and tag him out. No amount of reminding Thomas that he had never held a bat at Timothy’s age will convince him not to give chase the minute Timothy hits the ball, but Timothy has taken a page out of his daddy’s playbook in an effort to outsmart Thomas. When their dad attempts to steal a base, he points over the back fence and says, “Look! A deer!” It wasn’t long before Timothy attempted the same on Thomas.
“Stay alert!” Peter warned.
“Watch out for your great enemy, the devil.
He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.
Stand firm against him, and be strong in your faith.
Remember that your family of believers all over the world is going through the same kind of suffering you are.”
1 Peter 5:8-9 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/1pe.5.8-9.NLT
Peter wrote to encourage believers in Jesus to stand firm in God’s Grace in spite of persecution. (v.12)
“Dear friends, don’t be surprised at the fiery trials you are going through, as if something strange were happening to you.
Instead, be very glad—for these trials make you partners with Christ in his suffering, so that you will have the wonderful joy of seeing his glory when it is revealed to all the world.
If you are insulted because you bear the name of Christ, you will be blessed, for the glorious Spirit of God rests upon you.
But it is no shame to suffer for being a Christian.
Praise God for the privilege of being called by his name!
So if you are suffering in a manner that pleases God, keep on doing what is right, and trust your lives to the God who created you, for he will never fail you.”
1 Peter 4:12-14, 16, 19 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/1pe.4.12-19.NLT
So who are the most difficult people to forgive? Repeat offenders. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” I heard my daddy quote this adage on many occasions, mostly while trying to teach my siblings and I not to be gullible. Paul says something very similar regarding our spiritual enemy, the devil. Don’t want to be outsmarted time and again? Learn to recognize the thief, who comes only to kill, steal, and destroy. Someone, a brother, was wreaking havoc in the church at Corinth. Paul must have written between the letters we know as First and Second Corinthians to counsel and warn the new believers on dealing with conflict within the church. We learn that it saddened him to write and that his instructions were a test of their faith. He also counsels them to forgive this brother so that he will not become discouraged.
“Anyone you forgive I also forgive.
Was there anything to forgive?
If so, I have forgiven it for your benefit, knowing that Christ is watching.
We don’t want Satan to outsmart us.
We know how he does his evil work.”
2 Corinthians 2:10-11 NIRV
https://bible.com/bible/110/2co.2.10-11.NIRV
How do we know? God has revealed in His Word all that we need for living godly lives. From the first chapters of Genesis through Job to Jesus’s testing in the wilderness, we see the enemy’s lies.
“But I am not surprised!
Even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.
So it is no wonder that his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness.
In the end they will get the punishment their wicked deeds deserve.”
2 Corinthians 11:14-15 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/2co.11.14-15.NLT
“As you forgive, I forgive for Christ is watching,” Paul says. But why forgiveness? “To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you,” wrote American theologian and author Lewis B. Smedes in his book Forgive and Forget: Healing the Hurts We Don’t Deserve.
“Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how often should I forgive someone who sins against me? Seven times?”
“No, not seven times,” Jesus replied, “but seventy times seven!
“Therefore, the Kingdom of Heaven can be compared to a king who decided to bring his accounts up to date with servants who had borrowed money from him.
In the process, one of his debtors was brought in who owed him millions of dollars.
He couldn’t pay, so his master ordered that he be sold—along with his wife, his children, and everything he owned—to pay the debt.
But the man fell down before his master and begged him, ‘Please, be patient with me, and I will pay it all.’
Then his master was filled with pity for him, and he released him and forgave his debt.
But when the man left the king, he went to a fellow servant who owed him a few thousand dollars.
He grabbed him by the throat and demanded instant payment.
His fellow servant fell down before him and begged for a little more time. ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it,’ he pleaded.
But his creditor wouldn’t wait.
He had the man arrested and put in prison until the debt could be paid in full.
When some of the other servants saw this, they were very upset.
They went to the king and told him everything that had happened.
Then the king called in the man he had forgiven and said, ‘You evil servant!
I forgave you that tremendous debt because you pleaded with me.
Shouldn’t you have mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you?’
Then the angry king sent the man to prison to be tortured until he had paid his entire debt.
That’s what my heavenly Father will do to you if you refuse to forgive your brothers and sisters from your heart.””
Matthew 18:21-35 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/mat.18.21-35.NLT
Jesus’s disciples asked him to teach them to pray like He prayed. He gave them a model prayer that we call the Lord’s Prayer. Jesus also taught us how to forgive. Before the cross, he knelt before the twelve, one of the them a traitor, and washed their feet as an example for us to follow. From the cross, Jesus prayed for those who condemned Him, “Father, forgive them. They know not what they do.”
“I’m the one who held the nail
it was cold between my fingertips
I’ve hidden in the garden
I’ve denied You with my very lips
God, I fall down to my knees with a hammer in my hand
You look at me, arms open
Forgiven, forgiven
Child, there is freedom from all of it
Say goodbye to every sin
You are forgiven”
Forgiven ~CROWDER https://youtu.be/uUiwA1JNDig?is=ybmXIMyVuFp3cLk_
“If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you.
But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins.”
Matthew 6:14-15 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/mat.6.14-15.NLT
“Now you know these things.
So you will be blessed if you do them.”
John 13:17 NIRV
https://bible.com/bible/110/jhn.13.17.NIRV
“Pray like this:
Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy.
May your Kingdom come soon.
May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.
Give us today the food we need, and forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us.
And don’t let us yield to temptation, but rescue us from the evil one.”
Matthew 6:9-13 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/mat.6.9-13.NLT
For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
