In the Moment

"I said that in the moment," is a common excuse. There is often truth in that our speech in the moment may not reflect how we feel. But at times our speech in the moment reveals more of our true nature.

It is difficult at times because we do not like some things about ourselves. We might prefer to believe the prettified version of ourselves we present to others on a dally basis is our true nature. We often refuse to admit our problems.

The reality is we are quick to excuse ourselves and blame this or that and not see it as a reflection of ourselves. Thus a lack of time to think is an excuse for lack of action or slightly improper action.

Sometimes the reality is what we do without a lot of time to think says more about us than what we do after much thought. You see it is sometimes easy to convince ourselves to do the right thing after much thought, but if we must do the right thing now or not at all we often fail.

We always like to think well of ourselves and thus we create many grand excuses for ourselves. They are not needed as God knows our nature and wishes to save us anyway. But we always continue to like to prettify our lives.

What happened in a moment or what we failed to do often speaks to something in our nature. As Christians we are being renewed by Christ, but we also have our sinful nature which is not fully transformed. We often like to act as if our lives are far more sanctified then they are.

The truth of our ethical lack or even awareness that there may be something ethical we missed doing is difficult for us. We are often quick to judge others and quick to forgive ourselves.

The bible is very difficult in that it asks us to be quick to forgive others and more harsh on ourselves. It is of course entirely fair since God has forgiven us in a completely unqualified way.

It is not like we come to God and show a set of credentials and see if we may be forgiven. If we truly come to God for forgiveness in that moment we are already forgiven. God saves all who knock and ask for the forgiveness that comes through faith in Jesus.

Revival

Often it is easy to feel discouraged looking upon the state of segments of the church. But often we are only one step away from a healthy church.

You find many groups in the bible in the depths of folly and then the word of God comes and they repent. You see it is only one moment that separates Paul who persecuted the church from the Paul who spread the gospels with all his might.

The moment is a meeting of Jesus at the foot of the cross. Each moment even the darkest fallen person is only one step away from glory if they look to God and admit they are in need.

God asks that we come to him. It is easy to feel discouraged looking at the state of things, but for each individual who is in need of God (whether they know it or not) they are only one moment away from forgiveness.

Revival is repentance and conversion on a large scale. Often people reject revival because certain groups misunderstand revival and see it happen when it does not. The term often is misunderstood, but the reality that God has and often does work on a large scale is undeniable.

Often in theology we irrationally wish to reject ideas because certain people have articulated them very poorly or completely misunderstood the ideas. It is not that something is wrong with the ideas but it's something wrong with us that we would wish to reject ideas simply because we do not like the teaching of many who express the ideas.

May God grant us revival where it is needed in the current day.

Repentance and Forgiveness

Repentance means to turn away from one's actions. Whatever was wrong, we have turned from it and are now doing something new.

True and full forgiveness is based on repentance. It is often you see that people seek forgiveness but do not repent.

Often the church muddles everything by suggesting that we must forgive those who will not repent. You see there is a certain sort of peace or lack of anger we should have with the unrepentant.

Holding a grudge or stewing in anger is not Christian. We are to love our enemies. But it is very different to forgive the unrepentant or pretend nothing happened or is still happening.

And that is the great flaw in much of the teaching of the church of today. The idea that forgiveness does not need repentance.

We often like to simplify things in theology. We turn words which are not synonyms into synonyms. For instance, forgiveness equals forgetting to the church. It does most certainly not.

Another instance of this is repentance means acting sorry or claiming to be sorry. It most certainly does not.

You see the terms are related but repentance is being genuinely sorry, not saying the words. Often we cannot judge things immediately. We must wait and see but often repentance is faked and the church refuses to call a spade a spade.

Not Worthy

A lot of people in the world say they are "not worthy" of God's grace or forgiveness. I suppose that is the point. They are not worthy but God wishes to forgive them anyway.

You see God is a God who wishes to forgive. He already knows you are not worthy.

He knows who you are and what you have done and wishes to forgive. You see and meet many people in the bible who do not understand why people are forgiven.

Jonah does not understand why the Ninevehites are forgiven. Why are so many sinners forgiven by Jesus? Surely he should not forgive these terrible people.

You see the point is God forgives who he wishes. And he wishes to forgive all that want forgiveness. He will not turn any away who knock at his door.

There is more grace in God than there is sin in you.

Remembrance Good and Bad

Remembrance or willingness to not remember is a key ethical part of life. There are things which we should always remember and things which we should not remember in at least the sense of acting upon these memories.

We should always remember what God has done for us. It is good to remember what God has spoken through his word and also it is good to remember how God has acted in history.

It is also good to remember the kindness of others. At times it is good to remember our sufferings so we can understand those that suffer.

Certain remembrances are more worrisome. Remembering the transgressions of others against us is in particular worrisome.

We should not remember these things, because as God reminds us he has forgiven our great debt so we should forgive our small debtors.

All our debtors are small in comparison to our debt to God. It may not seem so, but we should see these things by faith.

Of course not remembering transgressions against us implies that we have forgiven, but not forgotten. Forgetting is often dangerous, since unrepentant people often repeat their actions.

There is often a need for both a remembrance and a forgetfulness with certain transgressors. We need to remember that they may not be trust able, but also forget the trespass in a moral sense.

John Piper Quote on Forgiveness

A bit from a John Piper sermon I really liked:

Saving faith means believing that God's forgiveness is an awesome thing! Saving faith looks at the horror of sin and then looks at holiness of God and believes that God's forgiveness is a staggering beauty and unspeakably glorious. Faith in God's forgiveness does not merely mean confidence that I am off the hook. It means confidence that this is the most precious thing in the world. That's why I use the word cherish. Saving faith cherishes being forgiven by God.

And there's the link with the battle against bitterness. You can go on holding a grudge if your faith simply means you are off the hook. But if faith means standing in awe of being forgiven by God, then you can't go on holding a grudge. You have fallen in love with mercy. It's your life. So you battle bitterness by fighting for the faith that stands in awe of God's forgiveness of your sins.