Hey guys. So this week I’m going to be talking about something I’ve always struggled with: forgiveness. Forgiveness has always been hard for me, especially at school. I find myself coming to school irritable because I’m anticipating all the things people will do to annoy me. Then when people do things that annoy me, I immediately get angry and bitter. But here’s a passage I read that’s been helping me with forgiveness.
Alright guys this is a parable from Matthew 18:22 “Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24 As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him. 25 Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. 26 “At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ 27 The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go. 28 “But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded. 29 “His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’ 30 “But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. 31 When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened. 32 “Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. 33 Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ 34 In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed. 35 “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.” So I think the analogy is pretty clear but powerful. We are the servant and God is the master. God has paid the huge debt of all our sin, and we refuse to extend that grace to others. To forgive like Christ we need to have a spirit of forgiveness like his. Jesus was getting nailed onto the cross and humiliated by people he poured love into and he still said “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). Wow. People at school are annoying but no one’s trying to crucify me. So how do we forgive like Christ? I mean I’m not sure I know 100%. But I think a good start is to look at the grudges we hold against people in the format of the parable. If the parable had just started with one servant holding another money, it would make sense that the servant would want his payment. But when it starts with how that servant was just pardoned from a way larger debt, the servant looks like an idiot! But that servant is us (or at least just me)! We need to put forgiveness into perspective by starting with the story of the King (God) instead of the story of the servant. Morgan Williams
7 Comments
I know this last weeks discussion topic has been awkward. Sooo I’m not gonna write about sex. Instead, I’m boutta pour out my heart and the ways that God is currently working in me. But I don’t have the answer to the final question I’m going to ask. If you’re one of those people that needs the answer. Then I wouldn’t continue reading. Just comment “nice job Linnea J”.
If I’ve still got you, here it is. I’m sure a lot of you feel this way especially going through junior year. I feel like I’m being stretched in a thousand different directions. Well, actually 6 directions. What I mean by this is I have 6 areas. SUPER IMPORTANT areas of my life that I need to pour my energy into. I’m not kidding when I say I need to. 1st is God. Of course I need to focus the 5 other areas on Him. It all should be centered on Christ. But I’m talking about my energy. It takes time and energy for me to try to build and grow in my relationship with Christ. I find prayer and worship incredibly restful. But, I have taken on duties in my faith that can be draining. Like being on the worship team at my church, volunteering to teach Sunday School, being on the student leadership team at my youth group, being our class chaplain (which I loveJ ), doing Jammers 4 Jesus (Monday morning worship sessions in the elementary music room during office hours, see ya there), and of course reading my Bible and devotions. As much as all of these things fill me because they are all truly rooted in bringing glory to God, they take energy. I’ll come back to these things at the end. 2nd is my family. I don’t even need to write a paragraph on this one, because I know you guys get it. There’s so much pressure from our parents. I try my best to make my parents proud and it can be devastating when I let them down. So, I pour myself into being the best daughter I can. I still mess up. My family is messed up. I know yours is, too. I know that that’s ok, but sometimes I work really hard to pretend it’s not messed up. I’m no Amanda in the Glass Menagerie, but I think we all try to pretend our families are perfect. That takes so much energy. 3rd is my boyfriend. Ah that guy. Don’t worry, I’m not gonna get all mushy. (but he’s the bestest). It takes a lot of emotional effort to be in a relationship. It’s so worth it. It’s worth how much energy it takes. But dang it takes a lot. 4th is my friends. Ok so I love my friends. But, wow it can be hard to add this into the mixture. Like it’s easy with my friends here at school. As for my friends outside of school, they can unintentionally get pushed to the side as time seems to fly by. I haven’t seen one of my closest friends in two months because the other 5 categories are taking so much time and energy. I rarely fight with my very best friend in the whole world, but lately arguments about how much time I’m spending with her has become our primary conflict. Fights are stressful. Stress drains. 5th is school. This class takes energy. And oh my goodness I don’t even want to talk about APUSH. You guys know how hard school can be. But, it also tends to take top priority for most. Unfortunately, school does not take top priority in my life. It takes a back seat to pretty much all the other things which is not good. My grades suffer because of that. But I can’t imagine taking energy out of any of the other areas. My homework ends up getting neglected whenever anything else needs energy. I take procrastinating to an incredibly stressful level. 6th is money. I wouldn’t even include this as something that I prioritize or as an “area of my life” like I have done with all the previously mentioned. But, I would say that it takes energy and time and it’s important. I have a job and I actually enjoy it but I can’t just push it to the side when other areas of my life become overwhelming. It takes responsibility and energy. I’m sure a lot of you struggle with being pulled in different directions. It’s stressful and makes life feel slow and overwhelming. I don’t have an answer for how to divide your energy and prioritize correctly. As you can tell, I’m trying to figure it out. The only solution that brings rest and ease has been prayer. I find that when I’m overwhelmed, I can “rant” to God about it and it turns into prayer for wisdom. I want to encourage you guys to ask God for wisdom when you don’t know the answers to stuff. Looking to Scripture is so needed, but also ask God. He wants us to ask for guidance. If the Holy Spirit is truly living inside of me, then I can lean into that when I don’t know what to do. I also want to challenge you to go listen to “God I Look To You” by Bethel Music. It’s a good song and I feel like worship is the best way to reflect on what I’ve just forced you to read so.. If you do, please comment your favorite lyric from the song so I can see who the true OGs are. Thanks for sticking with me if you got this far J Linnea Coffey The Life of Jesus . . . and Doubts
If I had started off by writing, "I have no doubt in my mind that Jesus was born, lived, died, and was resurrected" I would be lying. It even says in the book of Matthew, after Jesus started appearing to people after his resurrection, "And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted." Even after people had already seen Him with their own eyes they still doubted! I will share with you some points that have helped me strengthen my belief that Jesus Christ lived, died and rose from the dead.
http://www.apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=10&article=147&topic=228 Alright, so based on what we’ve been talking about recently I’m choosing to write on the resurrection of Jesus. I’ve always been interested in the resurrection of Jesus and how the heck it happened but I’ve never actually looked for what evidence there is. One piece of evidence that I found that I think is really cool that I’ve never seen before is the transformation of the early disciples. During Jesus’s early ministry James along with his brothers didn’t believe in Jesus (John 7:5). James suddenly changed after the resurrection when Jesus appeared to him (1 Corinthians 15:3-9). Paul is another example of one who was completely transformed by the resurrection of Jesus. Paul had been a persecutor of the church. After witnessing the risen Jesus, Paul became a proclaimer for the church. Another piece of evidence is all the post-resurrection eye witness accounts. There are multiple eyewitness accounts relating to the resurrection of Jesus. Several people had seen Jesus alive for a period of 40 days. The eyewitnesses include Mary Magdalene (John 20:10-18), the women at the tomb accompanying Mary (Matthew 28:1-10), the Roman guards (Matthew 28:4), the Eleven disciples (John 21), the two men on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35), a number of disciples (Matthew 28:16-20) and over five-hundred disciples (1 Corinthians 15:6), also James (1 Corinthians 15:7) and Paul (1 Corinthians 15:8-9). I know we already kinda talked about the eyewitness accounts but for me it’s interesting and good evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. Sorry if this was really boring but I found these two pieces of evidence to really give me reassurance that the resurrection of Jesus happened.
Jackson Pitney |
AuthorS
This blog serves as a collection of thoughts, journal entries, pictures, debates, transcribed conversations, and anything else that might help us, as well as others outside of the class, engage with the questions that arise during our apologetic explorations. Archives
March 2018
Categories |