Theological Commentary: Click Here
Discipleship Focus: Forgiveness
- Forgiveness: Forgiveness is when our sins are absolved by God. We do not deserve this forgiveness, but God grants it to us anyway. We cannot earn forgiveness, but God gives it to us anyway. As we are forgiven by God, He also asks us to forgive others. In fact, Jesus Himself teaches us to pray for our forgiveness in the Lord’s Prayer when He says, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”
God is
really and truly an amazing God. I can’t
begin to say how many times I have done things that God could have used as
justification to write me off. He hasn’t.
That’s
the part of 2 Kings that I love about God and Hezekiah. Yes, Hezekiah is a very faithful king. Hezekiah follows in the ways of David, loving
God with his whole being. Hezekiah goes
so far as to destroy the Asherah poles and return the whole country to a focus
upon God. Hezekiah seems to do much
right for God. But Hezekiah is not
perfect.
Hezekiah
has a large moment of stumbling. The
King of Assyria comes and threatens Hezekiah.
Hezekiah believes that he can buy off the king of Assyria and tries to
give the king wealth. In fact, Hezekiah
even robs the temple of its beauty in order to pay off the king of Assyria. Not only does Hezekiah not rely upon God for
salvation, Hezekiah takes what is the Lord’s and gives it to another
person. He wavers in the face of
challenge.
But God
does not abandon Hezekiah. God certainly
could have, given what Hezekiah did here in this story! Thankfully God is a forgiving God. God is a God of second chances. God knows that we do occasionally waver and
He forgives while allowing us the time and space to repent and change. After all, God does not ask us for perfection. Rather, God asks us for repentance knowing
that we will not be able to deliver perfection.
He is indeed a loving and forgiving God, even when we act like Hezekiah
and take what is ultimately His and give it away to someone else.
<><
No comments:
Post a Comment