More about Naaman, the slave girl and forgiveness

When you forgive, that means you absorb the loss and the debt.  You bear it yourself.  All forgiveness then is costly.  The slave girl of Naaman’s wife shows sympathy and concern for Naaman rather than bitterness or wanting revenge.  She could have made him bear the cost for what he had done to her.  Instead she forgave him and became the vehicle of his healing, she trusted God to be the judge of all.

We should not infer from this that forgiving means we should submit passively to oppression and injustice.  The Bible’s call to forgive and to seek justice are not mutually exclusive but complementary.  If you cannot do the interior work of forgiveness, you will seek excessive personal revenge rather than true justice.  You will not do a good job at confronting and correcting wrongdoers unless you first forgive them in your heart.  When you have lost the inner need to see the other person suffer then you will have a chance of actually bringing about justice, change and healing.  (Excerpts from Keller/Counterfeit Gods)

Some thoughts about eating apples.

After eating the apple, Adam and Eve realized they were naked.  At that point naked, which until then had not been an issue, was now an issue which brought guilt and shame.  An experience, which until that moment, had not existed.

Why put the tree there to begin with?  Perhaps because to be truly free you must first have a choice.

God knew they would fall and His plan of redemption was already at work.

Mountain climbing

You don’t realize that Jesus is all you need until Jesus is all you have.

Father, I confess this scares me a bit.  Not because I don’t believe it, but I don’t want to have to find out for myself.  I’d rather learn from others.  Please help me to never hold something so tightly that I can’t let it go.  I want You to always be first in my life, in my mind and in my heart.  I know that’s not always the case but it is the desire of my heart.  Teach me to “demote” anything I might treasure more than You; to be willing and to be able to live without it.

My morning take away

Reading about the Kiddush, the Jewish blessing of the wine.  It seems much of Jewish rituals have to do with remembering and in remembering giving glory and thanks to God for His provisions.

In Jewish law substituting grape juice for wine at Shabbat and Passover is acceptable and required for those who suffer from alcoholism.  In fact they consider it sinful for an alcoholic to not use grape juice because of Deut 4:15, the instruction to carefully preserve life.  To drink wine would put them and those they interact with at risk. (The Book of Jewish Values)

Exceptions to the rule – grace.   When we do what we do out of love for God, it will keep us from having to follow the rules; the rules will no longer be necessary.  However, it is to be love which is defined by God and not by man.  Sacrificial and other oriented – and for that we need His life in us.