Forgive Like A King, Love Like God

Going be brutally honest about myself. Just saying the following flirts with the utmost in hypocrisy as a Christian so please be forgiving of my sinful nature in lieu of the honesty given...

John 13:35 ~ “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

I am learning that absolute love is actually full forgiveness.  I cannot love fully and completely if I am at the very same time condemning another. I cannot love if I am continuing to keep a list of wrongs against someone. All the proof I need of this fact is in the Bible in the Gospel…in Christ’s ministry…at the Cross. The reason I cannot or do not love the way that I have been called to love by the Bible is because I do not forgive like Jesus did. So I hold vestiges of people’s failures in my memory. God doesn’t do this once He has forgiven, nor should I. I cannot love if I am hating and the only way to stop hating is to forgive. Again I stumble, again I fail over and over in this effort…and yet Jesus forgives my failings to not love Him or my neighbors the way I am called. He forgives my inability to forgive… if I acknowledge this fact remorsefully and turn to Him and seek forgiveness.

Unforgiveness binds us to our sin and hate. Forgiveness allows us to love and frees us. Forgiveness is unlocking a door to set someone free and finding out that the prisoner was actually me.

It therefore makes complete sense to me that God would state that the two greatest commandments revolve around love. First loving Him with all that is within me and then loving my neighbor the same way. When we truly love we truly forgive. The invisible God then becomes visible in our actions and glory is given to Him because we have been obedient to His command and because we manifest the truest nature of God in His holiness: Love. When we forgive and love properly we are not only preaching the Gospel, we are obeying it and living it simultaneously.

Unforgiveness was like drinking a poison and expecting someone else to die from it. To forgive frees you from a self-made prison.

Having said this I look back and observe my life and realize I have not loved the way I was called to love. When I have not been willing to forgive, to not itemize wrongs…I was not loving people. I realize then that I am not loving God the way that I should either. Thank goodness that God loves me first because He chooses to.

Don Henley was right in his song "The Heart of the Matter"...

"I've been tryin' to get down to the heart of the matter. But my will gets weak and my thoughts seem to scatter...but I think it's about forgiveness..." 

Even if others do not love me or will not forgive me the same I must always remember that God has.