Of Grace and Debt 3

In concluding this topic of archived files, allow me to get us into some scriptural examples; first, of someone who lived as if no such files existed, then later of someone who lived in the present reality of those archived files.

It would be important for someone who is reading this to go back to my earlier messages.

Let me however repeat that those archived files contain our sins, sins that were forgiven by the sacrifice of our Saviour.

Absalom schemed for two years to kill his eldest brother for raping his sister.

He then drugged him before killing him.

Of course there was only one expectation; his death for that crime.

He therefore ran to another kingdom.

After a few years as a ‘political’ refugee, his friend, general Joab, interceded for him before the king and he was allowed back.

But he wanted more.

To imagine he burned Joab’s ready to harvest barley field to send him to his father, king David!

It is also interesting that he argues his innocence as he is putting forth his case.

If I am guilty, let the king kill me.

The fact that he had been forgiven made him completely forget that he had ever been guilty of anything, let alone murder.

As you follow his story, you realise that he starts looking at himself as the victim, the one most offended.

To the point that he plotted and eventually overthrew his father.

He must have felt so offended to go to the point of raping his father’s ten concubines in broad daylight before the whole congregation.

It is no surprise that Joab was so angry at him that he killed him against David’s direct orders.

To imagine a person you rescued from oblivion burning your farm to force you to take him to the palace is not a pleasant feeling.

On the other hand, David exhibited intense gratitude for his forgiveness that he could still extend grace to this ungrateful murderer.

I am sure he wept because he was sad that his son had died without getting in touch with the grace that comes from proper forgiveness and restoration.

Absalom’s archived file transformed him into a worse person than he was before the first sin because he forgot what that forgiveness meant to the one offering it. He forgot the cost of that forgiveness by forgetting his sin.

For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death. (2Corinthians 7:10)

I will probably say something I think may have prompted that behaviour.

He is not the one who sought the reconciliation or even forgiveness.

We do not have any evidence that he ever approached Joab to intercede for him before David.

We are told that Joab sensed that David’s heart had softened toward Absalom.

It is possible this murderer thought that it was David who repented for chasing him from Israel, making David the guilty party.

That invitation was therefore the clearest indicator that David had repented of his mistreatment of his innocent son.

This flipped narrative completely changed the story to what we read in the scriptures.

That is what happens when we forget that we have been forgiven a debt that we had no capacity to pay, our sins.

And I see that all the time. Some have even made doctrines out of it though none of them produce holiness or even a desire to grow towards Christlikeness.

Allow me to give us two examples of someone who lives by the reality of that archived file.

The first one is Mephibosheth.

For all of my father's house were but dead men before my lord the king: yet didst thou set thy servant among them that did eat at thine own table. What right therefore have I yet to cry any more unto the king? (2Samuel 19:28)

Mephibosheth has been slandered by his servant before David so that in anger David would give him Saul’s estate. Yet look at our friend

And Mephibosheth the son of Saul came down to meet the king, and had neither dressed his feet, nor trimmed his beard, nor washed his clothes, from the day the king departed until the day he came again in peace. (v 24)

Look at what he says when the king seeks to reverse his earlier order

And Mephibosheth said unto the king, Yea, let him take all, forasmuch as my lord the king is come again in peace unto his own house. (v30)

That for me is what gratitude produces.

The other person is Paul. And I will just give a verse or so

This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief. (1Timothy 1:15)

That reality guided his life from the time he believed, from his work ethic to his response to his innumerable persecutions.

He knew he did not deserve.

He was only worthy because of the worth that was invested in him. Or do you not remember this

For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. (Romans 7:18)

There is nothing in me deserving the grace bestowed on me, was his rallying call even when he was on the way to his many ‘deaths’.

One thing that is evident with the people who like Absalom have obliterated the existence of their forgiveness is that they become vindicative like Absalom was. Or like the debtor who started this series of messages behaved.

Since I owe nobody nothing, nobody should owe me anything, becomes their confession.

In fact, the ‘do not judge’ brigade is for the most part confessors of this doctrine.

The other members are repeat offenders who will always want you to start with a clean slate however thick their file of past offenses is.

The immaturity resident in these characters is numbing. The ignorance exhibited in their arguments is insane.

Forgetting the fact of our forgiveness is detrimental to our spirituality. It is actually a denial of our redemption; however loud it shouts otherwise.

Ingratitude and entitlement are the direct results of that memory lapse, because it affects our entire memory bank concerning everything else.

Jesus was crucified due to that. He was ridiculed even by His immediate family due to that.

Remember at one time arguing with Jesus that they had never been slaves to anybody. Yet from Egypt to the time of judges to Babylon, their history was full of enslavement.

To the point that they even forgot that they were even at that time subject to Rome.

Jesus said something sobering. They had forgotten that they had been servants to anyone because they were slaves to sin and the devil who reigns in that realm.

Like is said, he who forgets history is bound to repeat it.

Forgetting from where Christ rescued me will lead me to requiring Him to rescue me once again.

Let me repeat some verses I used in my last post concerning this.

And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. (2Peter 1: 5 – 9)

It is a desire and effort to grow that will keep me in the right balance

We must desire to know God more to be able to access His grace.

But it will have to start at the point at which we acknowledge what He has done for us and where He has rescued us from

I may have to write further on this by looking at our relationships and how the lack of that memory of the good done for us interferes with healthy and wholesome relationships.