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Religous: God’s mercy and forgiveness
Father Tony Chakkunga
for South Peace News
One rainy afternoon Tommy was driving along one of the main streets of town, taking those extra precautions necessary when the roads are wet and slick. Suddenly, his daughter, Aspen, spoke up from her relaxed position in her seat.
“Dad, I’m thinking of something.”
He was eager to hear.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
“The rain!” she began, “is like sin, and the windshield wipers are like God wiping our sins away.”
“That’s really good, Aspen,” he responded. Then his curiosity broke in.
“Do you notice how the rain keeps on coming? What does that tell you?” he asked his daughter.
Aspen didn’t hesitate one moment with her answer.
“We keep on sinning, and God just keeps on forgiving us. He always remembers this whenever he turns his wipers on.”
God’s mercy and forgiveness are permanent
Because the Lord your God is a merciful God, He will neither abandon you nor destroy you; He will not forget the covenant with your ancestors that He swore to them (Deuteronomy 4:31).
Whenever we ask God for forgiveness, and when He grants it, we feel proud that we were able to please God. But the truth is that our nature does not please Him much. He does not respond to our prayer and repentance because of our worthiness, but because He remembers the covenant He has made with man.
And He made this covenant so that there will never be a person who will not receive His forgiveness. If His mercy or forgiveness is a result of relation with an individual, there may be people who will never approach Him; there may be people who may get destroyed in His anger. But since His forgiveness is a part of the covenant He has made with man, no one will ever be left out of His mercy and forgiveness.
So God will never remember the sins of the truly repentant because He does not violate His covenant.
God’s forgiveness is immediate
David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.”
Nathan said to David, “Now the Lord has put away your sin. You shall not die.” (2 Samuel 12:13)
God does not take time to consider our offer to return to good ways. The moment we tell Him we are truly sorry, His mercy and forgiveness surround us. It’s we who take a little or sometimes a little long time to consider what somebody tells us. God sees our hearts, so God does not need time to judge what we say. If our repentance is true and serious, the response from our God can never be quicker. That’s why the Word of God says, “Before you finish our prayer, you will get answer.”
God did not take time to respond to David. God did not take time to respond to Zacchaeus. God never takes time to forgive our sins. This is because He is waiting eagerly to forgive us.
God continuously tells the sinful to turn away so that He can show them mercy. Many consider God as one who is always in wait for punishing human beings. But God talks to all to turn away from their sinful ways. God talks directly to everyone in his heart to turn away from sinful ways. God talks to everyone to turn away from his sinful ways through the Word of God. God talks to everyone through the events in his/her life and others’ life. God talks to everyone through others.
But very few listen to his words.
He tells us not to postpone our repentance to tomorrow. He tells us to repent as if it were His need. He advises us as a teacher advises his students to stop wasting time and start concentrating on their studies. The teacher is not in need of the success of the student. How true is the story of the Hound of Heaven!
God does not consider the gravity of the sin
“Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be like snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool” (Ismael 1:18).
God does not consider the gravity of our sins and does not grant forgiveness according to the nature of our sins. When a sinner turns away from sinful ways, what He considers is the sincerity of his repentance. Nowhere in the Bible will we see God withholding His mercy and forgiveness because of the gravity of the sin. David says that God does not punish us according to our sins. God did not consider the gravity of the sins of Cain, David, the whole Israelites, etc. even when they were murderers or idol worshippers. The moment they repented God was quick to forgive them.
God celebrates the return of the sinner; we celebrate the restoration of our fortunes.
But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found (Luke 15:32).
Whenever I read the parable of the prodigal son, what touches me is the emotional outpouring of the father. The prodigal son’s only thought was that his father had plenty of wealth. He was sure he could somehow convince his father to take him back to his house. He was sure that at least he could get enough food in his father’s house.
The parable does not speak of his love toward his father. Nor is he interested in establishing a good relationship with his father even after his comeback. His sole aim was to quench his hunger.
But the second part of the parable vividly tells only one thing: God just wants to celebrate his son’s return. He just wanted to celebrate his son’s return (I do not get words to describe God’s happiness. May be, human languages are incapable of describing God’s happiness when a sinner returns).
He wanted to make sure that his son had everything abundantly. He wanted to make sure that his son never felt guilty or ashamed. He wanted to remove such feelings from him and from others. He did not give the slightest chance to others to talk about his son’s past. He just wanted to celebrate.
And He just wanted his son to celebrate all the more.
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