BEFORE AMEN (Lucado) - Forgive Me

Post based on Max Lucado's book, BEFORE AMEN: The Power of a Simple Prayer, 2014.
Daddy. You are good.  I need help. Heal and forgive me.  They need help.  Thank you. Amen.

FORGIVE ME

Chapter 6 highlights:

• Guilt is God's idea.  Guilt is the rumble strips on the highway of life.
• Guilt alerts us to the discrepancies between what we are and what God desires.  It stirs repentance and renewal. 
• God uses the sinless to carry away the sins of the guilty. 
• Give God your guilt. Be concrete in your confession.  Be firm in your confession. 
• Confession is not a punishment for sin; it is an isolation of sin so it can be exposed and extracted.

1.13.15  Rumble Strips
Isaiah 1:18 GNT
The Lord says, "Now, let's settle the matter.  You are stained red with sin, but I will wash you as clean as snow."
     I like Lucado's analogy of guilt as rumble strips along our life's highway.  We don't want a highway covered with them, but they do serve a purpose in alerting us when we stray off the road.  Guilt - the little conscience guy sitting on our shoulder - lets us know we are off course.  Guilt serves a purpose up to a point.  But it isn't something we want to carry with us.  We don't want to stray past the rumble strips because the journey will get unbearable, the road unpassable.  Guilt can make us defensive or defeated.  Either one is not what God wants for us.  So we can give our guilt to God.  It is a wake-up call that can promptly be returned.  

1.14.15 Scapegoat
Leviticus 16:21-22 MSG
He will put all the sins on the goat's head and send it off into the wilderness, led out by a man standing by and ready.  The goat will carry all their iniquities to an empty wasteland; the man will let him loose out there in the wilderness.
      This is where we get the term 'scapegoat'.  The one who takes the guilt and then is banished.  This was a yearly ritual for the Hebrew people.  Jesus fulfilled the NT prophecy of 'Once for All'.  He is the one and only scapegoat.  When we confess and place our sins, or transgressions, our omissions, our hurtful words - all of it - on Jesus, they are taken to the wilderness of the cross, and forgiven.  
      When we come to God in confession, we must be specific.  A quick, all-encompassing, 'Forgive me for everything I've done wrong' might not cut it.  Detailed confession helps us recognize our individual errors and work to correct the wrong.  Our confession might involve an apology to the wronged person, not just to God. Our confession paves the way for God's forgiveness. 
      



1.15.15    Erased
Psalm 103: 12-14 VOICE
You see, God takes all our crimes - our seemingly inexhaustible sins - and removes them.  As far as east is from the west, He removes them from us. 
     Erased.  Removed.  Gone.  Forgotten.  What an incredible act of forgiveness on the part of God.  What an act of Jubilee.  Our debts are wiped clean.  The Old Testament law required a year of Jubilee for the forgiveness of personal debts.  Perhaps this is where we get the term in some Lord's Prayer versions, as opposed to sin or transgressions.  The amazing thing about this is that it happens over and over!  We aren't forgiven just once, but are granted such grace EACH time we err, even if the sin is the same over and over. (Sometimes we are very slow learners!)  I'm sure God mutters to him/herself...'When are they going to figure this out?  This is SAME thing they did last week!'  Inexhaustible sin. Inexhaustible grace.  Inexhaustible forgiveness.  Just ask. 


1.16.15    AS
Matthew 6:14-15 GNT
If you forgive others the wrongs they have done to you, your Father in heaven will also forgive you.  But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive the wrongs you have done. 
     And now....the catch.  "Forgive others as I have forgiven you".  The grace God extends to us we must also extend to the wrongs done to us.  How often we forget this part of the prayer: ...."AS we forgive our debtors" (those who trespass against us).  We ask God to forgive AS we forgive.  Our failure to forgive others limits God's forgiveness to that 'AS'.  We ourselves place a limit on God's ability to function AS God desires and wills.  Goodness,  God must be frustrated with us! 
     A friend who was deeply wronged recently shared that she believed forgiveness was solely up to God, implying it wasn't her responsibility.  I was deeply troubled because I felt she was the one missing out on the freedom forgiveness bestows.  I was troubled because we are clearly called to forgive.  
     This entry is not a commentary from Lucado's book.  He doesn't mention this aspect  of 'Forgive me'.  But I feel strongly about our responsibility in this petition.  I feel so strongly about the 'AS' that I had to have my say!  Forgive me.