The Devil in his cunning,
Wants you to resent,
The person in how they hurt you,
He wants you emotionally bent.
The Devil in his pride,
Allows Christians their hypocrisy,
And so long as they don’t obey their God,
They align to a divine conspiracy.
The Devil in his hatred,
Seeks to create ructions in the ranks,
Where their love is lacking in motive,
Where for others there are no thanks.
The Devil in his greed,
Tempts Christians to leave their post,
To think selfishly against love,
And to give up on God their Host.
***
The Devil will let you do anything,
but obey God. This is why those that
stand in our way when we are trying to obey are at crossed purposes to God. Any
time we resist God by falling to Satan’s cunning, pride, hatred, or greed we go
the way of the world and we justify that it’s okay not to forgive. What a
reprehensible outcome! To justify the ostracisation of those who claim to love
God. Grace can always intercede through faith in even the most difficult of
relational situations. It is our lack of faith that gives up on people.
To
stubbornly hold on to unforgiveness is to deliberately disobey God. The
opportunity, moreover, is to understand that resentment and bitterness are
invitations to reconcile. The gift is awareness. And awareness is the
invitation to humility – to bend to God’s will, which is to reconcile by
letting go of our hatred, greed, and pride.
The
Devil wants you to fight for your own justice. He does not want you seeing
forgiveness as either possible or transcendent. The Devil is a liar, so just
watch for the justifications as they surface in our minds and hearts to limit
God’s comprehensive intent for forgiveness. There is only one way to please and
honour God: to forgive those who hurt us, unreservedly.
***
Forgiveness may not
begin from a heart attitude. It will start begrudgingly. But where we wilfully
persist in putting the other one first – yes, at any cost – we will see God’s
grace working through us and through them. It won’t happen overnight. We will
need to persist; especially as the other person recoils to hurt us (again and
again), which is a test of our motive and of our resolve to forgive. Prepare to
be tested. It’s not the other person who’s testing us, but Satan, and God knows
we can overcome such tests.
We must never set
out to forgive for selfish reasons, for we are destined for disappointment.
People may say, “Forgive for your own sake...” but, truly, forgiveness is for
life and hope in both people, and for life and hope to ultimately coexist
between aggrieved parties.
One thing I can say
I’ve seen time and time again in my life: there is the real hope of living in
harmony with everyone. Even if someone doesn’t agree with you, they don’t have
to dislike (or worse, loath) you. When we resist the Devil and shower those
that hurt us with grace we do see God’s Spirit at work. Then we believe in
miracles; real relational miracles.
© 2014 S. J.
Wickham.
Photograph by Fuse.
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