When Grace Gets Hard
Why is it that we tend to think our sin is not as bad as others? No matter what our sin is, we always have people that make us angry….like the person that does _____. How did you fill in the blank? Each of us has people in our lives that do things we utterly hate. It may be the person who lies to others. Perhaps the person who sleeps around. Maybe for you it is the person that is a religious legalist or the one who spends too much money. Whatever it is, it makes you angry.
So why does their sin make you angrier than your own? Perhaps it doesn’t. But most likely, your anger at someone is really anger at their sin (which you are deeming somehow worse than your own). So why is that? How come we can overlook our own sin and be angry at another? Why does our own sin not make us more accepting and forgiving of others?
Oh, we say that we understand this idea. Intellectually, we can reason all this out. But yet, we stay angry… Who are you angry at today? Why? Is their sin really worse than your own? Or is it just worse for you? What will it take to let it go…to see sin as a disease that needs a cure…a disease brought on by our choices, but still a disease. What can we do to learn to see the sin of others in light of our own?
Jesus said in Luke 6: “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful… Forgive, and you will be forgiven. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”
No one wants to be accused of judging…but who are you angry with today? Even if the anger is legitimate, what are you going to do with it?
- Written by Ed Palpant
May 29th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
We get angry at other people’s sins because we wouldn’t commit those particular sins, and we excuse ourselves of the sins we would commit. And for me personally, I don’t forgive others because I really don’t “get” how much I’ve been forgiven for. Last winter I sat in prayer over my unforgiving heart. I wanted to leave, but God wouldn’t let me. God just kept inching me closer and closer to my own sins, and it was pretty gut-wrenching. It is not comfortable to get up close and personal with your own sins. Of course, once you do that, you’re so grateful to be forgiven that forgiving others is a breeze!
Now, I shared this experience with my JG and said that basically the Holy Spirit sat down and started pinching the zits on my face, letting me see all the pus in them. And it was nasty and gross. But when it was done and my face was clean, I was ready to accept that the other person’s face would be clean too, and that I had nothing to hold against her. My JG found this analogy very disgusting. Which is why I’m sharing it on the blog. Enjoy!
June 4th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
Metallica has a song titled, “Cure”. The chorus is,
“Betting on the cure
Cause it must get better than this
Betting on the cure
Yeah everyone’s got to have the sickness
Cause everyone seems to need the cure
Precious cure”
I have never liked myself when I have prolonged anger with someone because it seems so selfish on my part. We all have the “sickness” called sin and we all need the cure. My “sickness” is not any better or less bad than anyone else.