Daily Devotionals for Difficult Days [101] Sonnet of Love (12) Love keeps no record of Wrongs

We've reached a Milestone!

Today we've reached a Devotional Milestone! One hundred and one devotionals in the last 101 days. By my reckoning these blogs began around mid March, just before UK lockdown began.

On the one hand those 101 days have gone past so quickly, but on the other hand March seems so far away: having watched spring unfold this year it seems ages  since the fields and trees were bare.

In the next few weeks we'll be reconsidering how frequently to write these blogs. Your feedback would be helpful in deciding the future!

Keeping a Record of Wrongs

William Cowper was placed in a  boarding school between the ages of six and eight. There he experienced many cruelties, and in later years had to work through them. Here's what he says:

"...my chief affliction consisted in my being singled out from all the other boys, by a lad about fifteen years of age as a proper object upon which he might let loose the cruelty of his temper. I choose to forbear a particular recital of the many acts of barbarity, with which he made it his business continually to persecute me: it will be sufficient to say, that he had, by his savage treatment of me, impressed such a dread of his figure upon my mind, that I well remember being afraid to lift up my eyes upon him, higher than his knees; and that I knew him by his shoe-buckles, better than any other part of his dress. May the Lord pardon him, and may we meet in glory!”

Offences child to child are still offences. And Cowper demonstrates remarkable Christian forgiveness.

Today's 9th attribute of divine love from 1 Corinthians 13 says that "Love keeps no record of wrongs."

Other translations put it like this;

"Love does not hold grudges"

"Love does not keep account of evil."

"Love does not take into account a wrong suffered."

The Greek word is "take into account" or "reckon" and means conscious or deliberate remembering. Something that will not happen automatically but requires mental effort and deliberate meditation upon.

When love considers how to treat someone it does not bring to mind all the past offences, small or large, and allow them to shape how to behave.

When young Joseph came to visit his brothers out in the wilderness they remembered all their grievances against him, such as the special daddy's boy coat and the big-shot dreams. And so they treated him badly, selling him off as a slave. They had "kept a record of wrongs."

The moment our behaviour towards someone takes into account past offences, we fail to love that person as Christ would have us love them.

How to deal with offences

As we pass through life, it is inevitable that people will offend us, including our brothers and sisters in Christ. How do we deal with those offences so that they do not affect our present behaviour towards them?

First, if we can overlook the offence we should. "...it is to one's glory to overlook an offense." (Proverbs 19:11). There are a thousand and one little upsets which can all be overlooked and forgotten, as we do so in our families with brothers, sisters, husbands and wives.

Second, if we can't overlook it - if the sin is too great or the offender needs to understand that they cannot behave like they are, then we must pass through the stages of Matthew 18.

Thirdly, the one thing we must never ever do is to mention the offence to another person. To do so is to break the rule of Matthew 18, of failing to go to your brother or sister on their own, and to tell someone else is to commit the sin of gossip.

Forgiving As God forgives

When God forgives he also forgets. This is a very high mystery because God is all-knowing. What God must do, we believe, is to choose not to remember, choose not to bring to mind, actively forget.

God views us with a clean slate.

This is what justification means. Because his Son has atoned for all of our sins, God now views us "in Christ" as though we had never sinned, though we have and do!

Here are the Scriptures:

"...as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us." (Psalm 103:12)

"I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more." (Isaiah 43:25)

"You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea." (Micah 7:19)

God not only throws our sins into the depths of the seas, suggested someone, he also puts a "no fishing" sign on the surface!

God deliberately forgets our sin because it has been paid in full.

Forgetting as God forgets

We shall never be able to love someone who has sinned against us unless we deliberately forget what they did to us. While we bring to mind their sins, we shall forever be divided from them.

Is there someone you cannot act lovingly towards because they have sinned against you?

We must ask God for the grace to forgive. We must, as Jesus taught in the Lord's prayer, tell God that we forgive them every time we ask God for personal forgiveness. We must stop rehearsing and nursing those past grudges and begin to love the offender freely.

Joseph so bitterly offended by his brothers was able, with God's help, to forgive them and save them from death by famine. This is how the Lord would have us act towards one another.

In my own experience forgiveness is a spectral process. Bitter offence can little by little melt into dislike, dislike can merge into like, like turn into love. Perhaps you think I am being too rational about it, but I have found it rare that bitter offence turns to love in one day. It takes time and the Spirit of the Lord working in our hearts through his powerful Word.

A SONG FOR THE DAY

In the 1970s local churches were encouraged to take part in "Come Together" a Christian musical whose aim was to unite local churches. I played guitar and my brother Frank did the PA for our local choir! Many songs came out of that enterprise, including this lovely one:

God forgave my sin in Jesus' name.
I've been born again in Jesus' name
And in Jesus' name I come to you
To share his love as he told me to.

He said 'Freely, freely you have received; freely, freely give.
Go in my name, and because you believe others will know that I live.

All pow'r is giv'n in Jesus' name
In earth and heav'n in Jesus name
And in Jesus' name I come to you
To share his pow'r as he told me to.

He said 'Freely, freely you have received; freely, freely give.
Go in my name, and because you believe others will know that I live.

Carol Owens

You can sing along HERE.

A PRAYER FOR THE DAY

Our forgiving Father in heaven,

We thank you for the way you bear with us and forgive our many sins. We thank you that through the suffering of your Son our wrongdoing has been paid in full. We thank you that you view us in and through your Son.

Help us to forgive those who sin against us. Help us to forgive them as you have forgiven us.

May we deliberately keep no record of wrongs.

We ask these things not only for their good, but for our good, and more so for your glory, that your children may display the endless forgiveness of their Father in heaven, here on earth.

In Jesus' Name we pray,

Amen

Photo Peter Reed