Dear God I want to be just like you OK

[Pages:4]Dear Christ, we want to be just like you. OK?

Luke 23:33-44

Colossians 1:15-20

Forgiveness. Great word. Great concept. We believe in it. We love it. We live it. Right?

There was a man who loved dogs. He served as a speaker in various civic clubs to benefit the SPCA. He was known far and wide as a dog lover. One day his neighbor observed as he poured a new sidewalk from his house out to the street. About the time he smoothed out the last square foot of cement a large dog strayed across his sidewalk leaving footprints in his wake. The man muttered something under his breath and smoothed out the footprints. He went inside to get some rope to string up around the sidewalk only to discover dog tracks in two directions on his new sidewalk. He smoothed those out and put up the rope (like that is going to keep the dog out???). About five minutes later he looked out and the footprints indicated that the dog had cleared the neighbors fence, landed on his sidewalk and walked all over his freshly smoothed concrete. The man was mad now. He toweled the wet concrete smooth again. As he got back to the porch he saw the dog come over and sit right in the middle of his sidewalk. He went inside got his gun and came out and shot the dog. The neighbor rushed over, "Why did you do that?" he inquired, "I thought you loved dogs." The man responded as he cradled his gun in the crook of his arm. "I do, I do like dogs, in the abstract, not in the concrete.

I wonder if it might not be the same with forgiveness. We love it in the abstract, but when we really have something to forgive; we hate it in the concrete.

We read in Genesis: God said, "Let us make man in our own image, in the likeness of Ourselves"...... the biblical writer then tells us.. God created man in the image of Himself in the image of God He created him, male and female he created them (Gen. 1:26,27).

A child wrote a letter to God in which he said, "Dear God, I want to be just like You when I am your age. OK? Tommy."

Regardless of age, what is required of us if we are to image God? The Apostle Paul gives us this answer... "Christ," Paul says... ".... Is the image of the unseen God and the first born of all creation... God wanted all perfection to be found in Him and all things to be reconciled through Him, everything in heaven and everything on earth, when He made peace by His death on the Cross." (Col. 1:15, 19,20).

Clearly, Paul is telling us that the fulfillment of our human destiny to image God requires that we imitate Christ, for "all perfection is to be found in Him." Again, in Paul's words, "He made peace by His death on the Cross" - which is where we find Him in today's Gospel lesson. And from which we hear him saying, "Father forgive them!" (Luke. 23:34).

Someone wrote these words years ago..... Lord, there are countless things in my life that are inexcusable. There are things unaccountable and things unexplainable. There are things irrefutable and things irresponsible. But it comes to me with unutterable relief that because of your amazing love nothing in my life is unforgiveable.

That is most reassuring, isn't it. And worth repeating to ourselves, over and over and over again. And the words should come easy ... "Nothing in my life is unforgiveable."

There is an ancient story about a dashing and dedicated knight who returned to the castle at twilight. He was a mess. His armor was dented, his helmet was askew, his face bloody, his horse was limping, and the knight was listing to one side of the saddle. The Lord of the Castle saw him coming and rushed out to meet him, saying, "What has befallen you, Sir Knight?" Straightening himself up as best he could, he replied, "O sir, I have been laboring in your service, robbing and burning and pillaging your enemies to the West." The nobleman was utterly taken aback and cried out, "You've been what? I don't have any enemies to the West!" "Oh..... well, I think you do now!" The knight replied.

To the north, to the south, to the east or to the west, do you have any enemies now? Put another way, is there anyone about whom you cannot say, "Nothing in his life in unforgiveable... nothing in her life is unforgiveable"?

A mature Christian Faith means more than accepting the reality of a higher order of Being. To say "I believe in God" in a mature Christian way means to say "I trust God and I will live according to His rule. God's will be done! God's will, as revealed to me by the Lord Jesus, be done!" In Matthew's gospel, for example, Jesus reveals the Father's will for your life and mine in the matter of forgiveness. Peter asks Jesus, "Lord, when my brother wrongs me, how often must I forgive Him? 7 times?" "No," Jesus answers, "not 7 times; I say 70 times 7 times". This is Jesus' way of saying that no limit whatever is placed on our need to practice mercy and forgiveness. The kingdom of God, Jesus explains to Peter, is built on endless mercy and forgiveness.

In an episode of the comic strip PEANUTS, Snoopy and Woodstock are on top of Snoopy's doghouse; and Snoopy says, "What are you doing here? You're supposed to be our somewhere sitting on a branch chirping. That's your job. People expect to hear birds

chirping when they wake in the morning." Whereupon, Woodstock flies off to the top branch of a shrub and belts out a single chirp. Then he comes back to the doghouse. Snoopy speaks again, "You only chirped once. You can't brighten someone's day with one chirp." So Woodstock flies back to the shrub and lets out six more chirps; and when he returns, Snoopy smiles and says, "There now! Didn't that give you a real feeling of satisfaction? The bad news is you're supposed to do that every morning for the rest of our life." Hearing this, Woodstock faints and falls off the doghouse.

Please don't faint when I tell you the Good News that, as a mature Christian, you're supposed to engage in the process of mercy and forgiveness and love day and night for the rest of our lives.

Why has God ordained that our fulfillment as human persons depends upon the ongoing quality of our mercy? Why has God ordained that our peace of mind and soul, our happiness, depends upon our willingness to forgive, even our enemies? Who can give an answer? Who can claim to understand the process of love? Only God, of course, for God is love. Our knowledge of God is a mere human glimpse. No one can understand the process of mercy and forgiveness and love fully. It all comes down to a matter of trust. God is asking us to trust Him. God is telling us that in order to become the uniquely beautiful, fulfilled persons He wants us to become, we must learn to forgive the brother or sister who has wronged us unconditionally (not 7 times 7, but 7 times 70 times). God is asking us to complete trust, a no question kind of trust.

In the life of the mature Christian, forgiving, which begins with self-forgiveness, becomes a constant, ongoing process ? a way of living. It means letting go of past resentments and bitterness and moving on. Of course, it's not always easy, but it's worth every difficulty. And there is nothing mushy or softheaded about loving and forgiving. As the late Dr. Jonas Salk put it... The end result of forgiving is to release the power in the nucleus of the individual ? a power much greater in its positive effects than atomic power in its negative.

The point is this... if we can be courageous one more time than we are fearful, if we can be trusting one more time than we are anxious, if we can be cooperative one more time than we are competitive, if we can be loving one more time than we are hateful, if we can be forgiving one more time than we are vindictive..... We will have moved closer to the next big breakthrough in our human growth, and closer to the next big breakthrough toward our full human potential.

They beat him unmercifully, Christ our King. They crowned Him with thorns, Christ our King. They nailed him to a cross, Christ our King. And he said, "Father, forgive them."

The perfect image of the unseen God, in whom "all perfection is to be found," merely said, "Father forgive them."

Dear Christ, our King, we want to be just like you. OK?

Olin W. McBride MPC ? June 24, 2012

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