Devotion - Monday, August 31

For the sake of new additions to this listserve, allow me to repeat one of my most treasured axioms on quoting the bible.  It is from Philip Melanchthon:  "Never quote a verse of scripture unless you can quote two more:  One which reinforces the first; and another which challenges the first."

I was directed this morning to Mark 11:26, where I read one of the "challenge" verses for me.  Jesus is speaking, "But if you do not forgive, neither with your Father who is in heaven forgive your trespasses."

So much of scripture tells us that Jesus forgives, even more abundantly than we are able to ask.  Over and over again Jesus says he came to the lost.  We are comforted to know that the spirit finishes our prayers which are too deep for understanding.

Then, I read Mark 11:26.

I don't want to dismiss this verse, or find some way to explain it away.  What I fear most is that I might latch on to it and use it as a way of holding trespasses over the heads of those whose transgression has affected me.  

Here is where my prayers this morning lead me:  I continue in my confidence that God is more willing to forgive than I am to ask for forgiveness.  Since I draw my very life from that God, then I will surely understand the significance of that forgiveness.  As one so dependent on a forgiving God, as one so moved by God's forgiveness, how could I possibly withhold forgiveness?  So, I will forgive.  As I have first been forgiven.  And even if Mark 11:26 is a hard and fast rule, it won't affect me.  After all, if the only reason I forgive is out of a fear that I won't be forgiven, am I really forgiving or merely pretending so as to qualify for a greater prize?

Scripture will always surprise us and challenge us.  It is important we read the verses which bring us pause and challenge us.