83.4 Restoration Through God

(Psalm 85)

Lord, you have been merciful to your land;
you have made Israel prosperous again.
You have forgiven your people's sins
and pardoned all their wrongs.
You stopped being angry with them
and held back your furious rage.

Brings us back, O God our savior,
and stop being displeased with us!
Will you be angry with us forever?
Will your anger never cease?
Make us strong again,
and we, your people, will praise you.
Show us your constant love, O Lord,
and give us your saving help.

I am listening to what the Lord God is saying;
he promises peace to us, his own people,
if we do not go back to our foolish ways.
Surely he is ready to save those who honor him,
and his saving presence will remain in our land.

Love and faithfulness will meet;
righteousness and peace will embrace.
Man's loyalty will reach up from the earth,
and God's righteousness will look down from heaven.
The Lord will make us prosperous,
and our land will produce rich harvests.
Righteousness will go before the Lord
and prepare the path for him.

                                                                                                                                                                                                   

83.3 Keep On Forgiving

(Luke 17:3-4)

So watch what you do!
"If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. If he sins against you seven times in one day,  and each time he comes to you saying, 'I repent,' you must forgive him."

83.2 Forgive As We Are Forgiven

(Matthew 18:21-35)

Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, if my brother keeps on sinning against me, how many times do I have to forgive him? Seven times?"

"No, not seven times," answered Jesus, "but seventy times seven, because the Kingdom of heaven is like this: Once there was a king who decided to check on his servants' accounts. He had just begun to do so when one of them was brought in who owed him millions of dollars. The servant did not have enough to pay his debt, so the king ordered him to be sold as a slave, with his wife and his children and all that he had, in order to pay the debt. The servant fell on his knees before the king. 'Be patient with me,' he begged, 'and I will pay you everything!' The king felt sorry for him, so he forgave him the debt and let him go.

"Then the man went out and met one of his fellow servants who owed him a few dollars. He grabbed him and started choking him. 'Pay back what you owe me!' he said. His fellow servant fell down and begged him, 'Be patient with me, and I will pay you back!' But he refused; instead he had him thrown into jail until he should pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were very upset and went to the king and told him everything. So he called the servant in. 'You worthless slave!' he said. 'I forgave you the whole amount  you owed me, just because you asked me to. You should have had mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you.' The king was very angry, and he sent the servant to jail to be punished until he should pay back the whole amount."

And Jesus concluded, "That is how my father in heaven will treat every one of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart."

83.1 Reconciled Through Christ

(2 Corinthians 5:14-21)

We are ruled by the love of Christ, now that we recognize that one man died for everyone, which means that they all share in his death. He died for all, so that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but only for him who died and was raised to life for their sake.

No longer, then, do we judge anyone by human standards. Even if at one time we judged Christ according to human standards, we no longer do so. When anyone is joined to Christ, he is a new being; the old is gone, the new has come. All this is done by God, who through Christ changed us from enemies into his friends and gave us the task of making others his friends also. Our message is that God was making all mankind his friends through Christ. God did not keep an account of their sins, and he has given us the message which tells how he makes them his friends.

Here we are, then, speaking for Christ, as though God himself where making his appeal through us. We plead on Christ's behalf: let God change you from enemies into his friends! Christ was without sin, but for our sake God made him share our sin in order that in union with him we might share the righteousness of God.