Scripture
7Now, however, it is time to forgive and comfort him. Otherwise he may be overcome by discouragement. 8So I urge you now to reaffirm your love for him. 9I wrote to you as I did to test you and see if you would fully comply with my instructions. 10When you forgive this man, I forgive him, too. And when I forgive whatever needs to be forgiven, I do so with Christ’s authority for your benefit, 11so that Satan will not outsmart us. For we are familiar with his evil schemes. 2 Corinthians 2:7-11
Observation
The Church in Corinth had been hurt by someone who sinned against them and they removed him from fellowship. Now, Paul was asking them to reconcile with this man so that he would not be “overcome by discouragement”. The phrase in Greek is to be “swallowed up by sorrow.” Paul makes it clear that the real test is the forgiveness test. If they do not forgive they will be playing right into Satan’s hands and fulfilling his plans to not just destroy the life of one man who sinned but to destroy the lives of the entire church through the sin of unforgiveness. Paul writes that the enemy who loves to take advantage of a bad situation will literally be given the advantage if they don’t forgive. Forgiveness not only passes God’s test of their faith but trumps the enemy's plans in their lives. Satan wins the game every time when we choose offense over forgiveness.
Application
Cyndi is a master at Monopoly. She wins probably 90% of the time. 80% of those wins are accomplished with the orange properties. With everyone at home during this Pandemic, we are having game night almost every night. This past week I went in with one strategy. Do not let Cyndi have the orange properties. That’s it. It was that simple. Cyndi has a natural advantage outside of which properties she has because she is way smarter than me and good with numbers and strategy. Seeing how she won so many times before helped me to avoid giving her the same advantage this time around. Guess what? I actually won the game of Monopoly. Everyone was amazed because this has happened so rarely over the course of our almost 23 years of marriage. Being that we have so much time at home I wanted to see if there was anything substantive about my strategy. It turns out there is. According to nerds who know so much more than me (by the way, nerds rule the world right now. They did before, but now that we are all on our computers trying to stay connected, they rule even more. Find a nerd and make them your friend.) there is a proven logic behind my “keep the orange properties away from Cyndi no matter what it takes” strategy. “Monopoly players are sent to jail for all kinds of reasons. And that means that the properties about one roll of the dice outside of jail are visited most often. As Walter Hickey, formerly of Business Insider and now at FiveThirtyEight, writes, jail serves as a "sink" -- people are sucked from places on the rest of the board and emerge from jail. That gives the orange and red properties a critical significance…” In the same way, the Apostle Paul is telling us how to keep our properties, our relationships, our homes out of the enemy's hands. There is a way to beat the enemy and remove his ability to ever win when he is playing us. It’s forgiveness. Forgiveness is our way forward. Before moving forward let me be clear I am not equating my wife with the enemy of my soul. The only reason I won the other night is that I learned by watching her. Even with that said, stupid things have been said by me over the past two weeks of quarantine (this game analogy may be another one ;-) and Cyndi has beaten the Devil down every time because she was quick to forgive. All of us are going to end up in emotional jail due to our words or actions while confined to tight spaces. All of us, like the church in Corinth, must choose to let each other out of jail through forgiveness. Lot’s of grace is required when we share the same small place. When we choose to hold on to offense instead of extending forgiveness we are playing right into the enemy's hands because then everyone ends up in jail and he’s got the run of the board. Don’t let him have even a square inch of your soul or he wins every time. You give him one orange property and he will take the board. You hold on to one argument, one tone of voice, one yelling match and you will find yourself and your house “swallowed up by sorrow.” Which, by the way, is how I usually feel at the end of a Monopoly game. The real test of these tumultuous times isn’t going to be how much toilet paper we have stockpiled, how quickly we can get back to “normal” or how intact our 401K looks on the other side. The real test is whether or not we will remain aware of Satan’s schemes to trap our homes and friendships in a spirit of offense. Everyone is on edge right now because none of us ever lived through a Pandemic before. We need to give each other lots of space and grace and refuse to give unforgiveness any space in our souls. Who do we need to apologize to today? Who do we need to call up and ask forgiveness? There’s no time to waste. We don’t anyone to be swallowed up by sorrow no matter how much we may have disagreed in the past.
Prayer
I love the idea of winning and You have already won. The whole time You were being crucified for our sins the Devil in his arrogance thought he had won the game. You removed every one of the pieces from his grip and bought eternal peace for all who would follow You. While You were being beaten and mocked You turned the tables on the enemy when You prayed “Father, forgive them for they don’t know what they are doing.” I choose to do the same thing. I choose to forgive forward.
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