How to Forgive

I hope you have all had a great week. It has been fun to feel fall rolling in this week as the temperatures have gone down significantly, leaves are changing colors and falling, and the air just has that smell about it. What a great time of year to just take in what God has placed before us.

Last week, we finished our first message series of the semester called No Mo Zeros, dealing with all the things in our lives that we give ourselves over to instead of God. Playing off of our Fall ad campaign, based on the character of the mannequin Johnny Zero, we referred to all of these different things as zeros in our lives because ultimately they all leave us empty and longing for something more.

This week was a little change of pace as James handed over the teaching reigns to his good friend Sam Dyer, who has been investing in the ministry of The Well this year in a number of ways, primarily by teaching on Sunday nights at The Link. This was Sam's first opportunity teaching at a Wednesday night Well gathering, and he did a great job. He taught on the theme of forgiveness, using the parable of the ungrateful servant from Matthew 18 as his text. While Sam hoped to communicate a number of things through his message, his primary goal was to communicate that as believers who are forgiven a debt far beyond anything we could ever repay, we are called to forgive others unconditionally, without limit. We were all challenged in a significant way as to the revolutionary way Christ calls us to forgive. As believers who claim to pursue Christ passionately, are our lives marked by the quality of forgiveness? Do we forgive without limit or do we place conditions on the forgiveness we are willing to hand out? What do the scriptures say?

As we as a staff met together Thursday morning, we were all very mindful of the timeliness of this message. In the wake of a number of recent school shootings, particularly the most recent in Paradise, Pennsylvania, we had some discussion about the role of forgiveness in light of such occurrences. In a one room Amish school house, an atrocity occurred, which has now taken the lives of at least five girls. One might wonder as we did in our time together how you could forgive such an awful act. And yet, that has been the overwhelming response of the Amish community. In article after article and in numerous interviews, members of the Amish community have continued to befuddle the media with their desire to offer forgiveness for the horror brought into their lives. As we sat and discussed this particular incident and its aftermath, it struck us how little the world really understands of forgiveness and how little even we as followers of Christ even understand. One of the first things the Amish community wanted to do was to take food to the family of the deceased killer. How do you wrap your mind around that.

Is forgiveness easy? Rarely. But just as Sam taught Wednesday night, it's what we're called to. It is the only response we really have if we can even remotely grasp the extent of the debt which Christ paid for us, the depth of his forgiveness which has given us access to abundant life.

I hope you all have a great weekend. May the Lord continue to reveal His character in us all.

for His glory,
Seth