Community Devotions

Robust Yet Imperfect

SCRIPTURE

"Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation… 4 So Abram went, as the LORD had told him and Lot went with him” - Genesis 12:1-2a; 4)

OBSERVATION

Abraham is the biblical example of faith par excellence i.e. “Abraham believed and it was counted to him as righteousness” (Rom 4:3; Gal 3:6; Jas 2:23). His faith was so robust that he left everything he knew in order to go to the land that God will show him. Whereas most of us mere mortals need precise directions and a detailed map before we move out in faith, the presence of God was enough for Abraham to leave his country and family to obey the promises of God. Yet as robust as his faith was—it was still imperfect. He didn’t trust God with his posterity and blatantly lied (twice!) about his wife Sara while putting her life in danger. Living in faith is not a perfect endeavor. We stumble and fall in doing our best to follow God. One minute Abraham was courageous then the next minute he is a coward. Suck is the nature of faith.

APPLICATION

Failure is not final. Just because I fall doesn’t mean I quit. This long obedience in the same direction of following God is a marathon of falling and getting up. Martin Luther King Jr said, “If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.” Faith is moving forward because God is faithful. When Abram failed God intervened to ensure that his promises would endure

PRAYER

Heavenly Father,

Thank you for your faithfulness! Your faithfulness in providing and securing salvation in Christ is steadfast:

    “If we have died with him, we will also live with him;

    if we endure, we will also reign with him;

    if we deny him, he also deny us;

    if we are faithless, he remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself.” (2 Timothy 2:11-12)

Forgive From Your Heart

SCRIPTURE

Then his master summoned him and said to him, “You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’ And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt. So also, my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.” - Matthew 18:32-35

OBSERVATION

The most forgiven people should be the most forgiving people. God has forgiven the most in the wicked servant i.e. ten thousand talents (a talent was a monetary unit worth about twenty years’ wages for a laborer). The average salary of a blue collar worker in US is $43,318. Multiply that by 20 years which comes out to $866,360. Multiply that by 10,000 and that comes to 8,633,600,000 dollars. Can you imagine accruing a debt that large? That’s the amount of the gross national income of a small country like Jamaica, Albania or Honduras. It would take multiple life sentences to pay off that debt! Yet that debt was cleared and forgiven by the gracious master. This wicked servant could not and would not forgive a fellow servant who owed him 100 denarii (day’s wage for a laborer) which would be about $21,600 today. A $21,000 debt is no small debt meaning that when people offend and injure us, it still hurts. But in comparison to what has been forgiven, he could easily forgive.

APPLICATION

Point of Application:

• Stand on God’s forgiveness through Christ. My offenses, transgressions, iniquities, rebellion, disobedience and treason against the God of the universe, creator of heaven and earth has been forgiven in full when Christ took on my son at the cross. Charles Spurgeon says that, “You stand before God as if you were Christ, because Christ stood before God as if he were you.” Jesus took all my punishment I deserved that I continue to accrue on the cross.  

• Forgive from my heart: The question is not how can I forgive? Rather, the question is how could I NOT forgive? First, recognize and acknowledge the hurt and wounds that others have done to me but anchor my forgiveness of others in how God in Christ has forgiven me. Understand the debt of 100 denarii that others have incurred but forgive from the heart who’s been forgiven of 10,000 talents.

PRAYER

Heavenly Father,

Thank you for complete and experiential forgiveness in you. You are abounding in mercy and great in steadfast love. Thank you for paying the price of my forgiveness—the death of your own son. Fill me with your grace, mercy and kindness so that I can forgive others. May my forgiveness know no bounds. Help me to process hurts and wounds so that I don’t suppress and deny them but realize the freedom in forgiveness. I love you.