I Receive Back More of What I Give — But Grace is Needed, it’s a Learning Process

My human nature, people around me and even the world’s “experts” tell me that I should insist on my “rights,” hold grudges forever, cut people off, deny all mercy and all forgiveness, particularly when I have been hurt badly. But God’s wisdom tells me to show his grace, mercy and forgiveness, and to set people free. Jesus promised—and warned—that I will receive back even more of what I give, good or bad. But becoming like Jesus is a learning process I am still far from completing.

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As was said at the end of the last installment, God gives me back in the same kind as I give others, and, ultimately, more of it than I have given. If I show mercy, I will be shown more mercy than I have shown, though not necessarily at the same time as my acts of mercy or from the same people I have shown mercy. If I forgive, I have already been and will be forgiven even more But if I refuse to show mercy, I will not be shown mercy when I am in even greater need. If I refuse to grant forgiveness, holding those who have offended against me in bondage for their offenses, I will also be held in bondage for my own offenses, with torture added to my bondage (remember the parable of the unforgiving servant, explained in several earlier installments?)

But if I set others free, I will also be set free–and find even greater freedom than I have given. I can know this is true because, right after saying that I will be set free if I set others free, Jesus said that I will be given whatever I give to others, in the same measure–the same kind of good or evil I am giving to others–but that measure will be filled to overflowing:

This is both an encouragement and a promise. It is an encouragement to always choose the path of grace, mercy, forgiveness and freedom over the path of insistently asserted rights, law, hard-hearted refusal to see others’ needs, unforgiveness, anger, grudges, retaliation, division, bitterness and the resulting bondage. The way I am here encouraged to take is not the “normal” or “natural” way. It is not at al the way my human nature wants to take, and it is not the way most other people–including most of the world’s “experts” on how I should behave–will tell me to take. The world will usually tell me to insist on my “rights,” to first “cut off” and then retaliate against those who don’t respect those rights in the way I would like. The world and its experts would say to get therapy for any annoying symptoms that result from bitterness, but to hold onto the grudge forever. No victim of any offense, no matter how large or small, should ever consider forgiving their offender–to do so would be to give them the right to do “it” (whatever “it” was) all over again.

But all of this is not God’s way. God’s way is to show mercy and grant forgiveness the same way God has forgiven me and shown me mercy. When God shows me his mercy, he is not giving me permission to sin again. Instead, his mercy is a part of his work within me that frees me from my sin. The intent of his work is to abolish sin in me, not to encourage it.

And neither does my forgiveness or my act of mercy toward one who has wronged me give them my permission to wrong me again. Instead, it is, like God’s mercy toward me, a part of God’s work in their lives which is intended to ultimately free them from their sin which injured me. Because, when I show mercy toward another that is like the mercy God has shown me, God is working through me to show them mercy. God is using me to set them free.

These verses are also a promise. If I allow God to set others free, I will receive even greater freedom than that which I give. This doesn’t apply only to people who are stuck in sin but have never hurt me. And it isn’t limited to people who have wronged me in trivial ways but not hurt me very much. No, the greatest test of this promise comes in my behavior toward people who have hurt me badly. If I set people who have grievously wronged me and hurt me badly free from the bondage of my bitterness, I will receive even greater freedom than I have given them. This is Jesus’ promise to me.

But my flesh, the world of other people around me, and even the popular “experts” on human behavior will tell me to do exactly the opposite of this. This was also true in Jesus’ day. The experts looked up to by the Jews to whom Jesus was preaching also counseled victims of offenses to require exact retribution, “an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth,” a popular saying Jesus quoted, and disagreed with, in the Sermon on the Mount. (Matthew 5:38). Jesus also quoted, and disagreed with, these same experts’ counsel that everyone should “love your neighbor, and hate your enemy” (Matthew 5:43).

Because even the people the world around me regards as wise will tell me I ought to do the opposite of showing and giving the grace, mercy, forgiveness and freedom Jesus tells me to show and to give, Jesus next words are a warning against following people I think to be “wise” when they tell me to ignore his instructions:

This is a “parable,” a word picture, drawing an analogy between something common and easy to understand and a deeper spiritual truth. But it is a very clear, pointed word picture. Jesus is not saying that the “experts” who would counsel me to ignore his instructions are physically blind, and he is not talking about a literal “pit”–a hole in the ground. But he is saying that these “experts” are spiritually blind. And he is also saying that, when I follow their advice to hold onto my grudge, deny grace and mercy, and to never set my offender free, I am also spiritually blind. And when one blind person tries to lead another blind person through a place that is unfamiliar to both of them, it is an accident just waiting to happen. Eventually they will both trip over an obstacle neither was aware of, or, as Jesus said, fall into a pit together. Only, in this instance, the real pit is a spiritual one. Following the wrong advice in this matter will lead to even deeper bondage–a pit–and, ultimately, to destruction–the pit.

Remember what was said in an earlier installment about taking the Lord’s Supper unworthily–by not recognizing the Lord’s body? See, also, 1 Corinthians 11:27-32. Because the Corinthian church had bitter divisions, some of them caused by personal offenses, yet those who held onto those divisions were taking the Lord’s Supper, they had incurred the Lord’s corrective judgment, “many” among them were sick, and “some” had died. This is one example of a “pit” (here, sickness) and the “pit” (here, death), that resulted from listening to the wrong teachers.

I will now digress from Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain to quote the contrasts James and Paul drew between true wisdom that comes from God and the teachings of people the world thinks are wise:

The wisdom of the world is foolishness in God’s sight. The thoughts of the wise are useless. The only way to become wise is to admit my own wisdom is foolish and submit to God’s wisdom. Enough said!

Then, according to James, the world’s wisdom honors ambition, jealousy, bitterness and arrogance. This wisdom is both “natural” and “demonic,” and none of it comes down from God. But God’s wisdom demonstrates the opposites of these:

God’s wisdom is gentle, peace-loving, pure, reasonable and full of mercy–the same things Jesus said we should be showing to others. “And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.” Righteousness only grows in peace, not in anger, bitterness and division.

After his parable about what happens when a blind person leads another blind person, Jesus makes what will be my last point for this part of this series. Jesus tells me where my ability to understand and do as he has said has to come from. Both my understanding and my ability must come from him:

Not only does all of this have to come from Jesus, I also shouldn’t expect to receive it all at once. I wasn’t born, or born again, with a fully developed ability to be merciful, forgiving, gentle, loving, or any of the other qualities, just as Jesus is. He is training me. It is a learning process. I am still far from perfect, but he is training me. I still hope someday to be fully trained, and like Jesus in all of these ways. To get there from where I am, I need to be responsive to his voice and his Spirit, and ready to be corrected when I do stray from what he has told me and sin. I still do stray sometimes, and badly, believe me!

This series is a part of my response to correction for a very serious error on my part that has caused several people a lot of trouble and has created–temporarily, I hope–a division in the Body of Christ. A sin is a sin–sins don’t come in grades of better or worse. All sins can be (and are) forgiven by God and can be (but usually are not) forgiven by other Christians. But the error that led to this sin has caused a lot of trouble. So I know my “gambling odds” of obtaining reconciliation any time before the day after my funeral are not very good. Still, I need to know how to handle on my end the problems this has caused. So I have been studying the matter and will continue to study and to put the results in writing until a proper opportunity to seek reconciliation of this very delicate and difficult situation presents itself and God shows me–or others in authority over me–how to move forward with that opportunity.

I have written this series in the first person because it is about me and directed to me. I need to know what to do in my situation, so I am studying it thoroughly while awaiting an opportunity to act. I merely have invited anyone who wants to follow along the opportunity to do so, and to comment on any errors I’ve made in my interpretation or application of Scripture. I want to get it right!