SCRIPTURE: Luke 17:3-6
This is the first time I have ever noticed this line: ‘rebuke them’.
I can think of someone from my church past who would have loved this verse.
He had the rebuke thing down pat, and would not forgive until they repented.
We should not read this verse without grace in mind.
We need to rebuke with grace, and we need to forgive with grace.
And if they keep on sinning, and keep on repenting, forgive them… with grace.
In fact, only grace can make this possible.
It doesn’t take great faith to do this, but great grace.
The power does not lie in the faith, but in the grace working through the little faith.
By grace I mean God’s loving power for us, and in us.
Only a heart humbled by grace can properly rebuke or sincerely forgive.
And that grace will continue to love and reach out, even when the person does not repent.
Like Jesus on the cross, forgiving His crucifiers, the grace keeps flowing no matter what.
My prayer is not ‘increase my faith’, but ‘increase Your grace’.
For apart from God I cannot rebuke, repent or forgive as I ought to.
What do you sense the Lord saying to you?
PRAYER
Lord, I admit that my faith is small, but Your love and power our great. Increase Your grace, that I may love and serve others as I ought to.
I always have a hard time with “grace” not sure in my understanding of the word. I always think of the blessing you say before a meal as saying grace. When I read the above scripture or what you wrote it still seems like a hard word for me to understand fully the concept. I have a bible study I wanted to start in August called “Parenting with Purpose and Grace” maybe I will have a better grasp after that. Lol! Hopefully 😉
Observation/Application
Be as Christ unto them.
How often have I not sinned? Strayed from the way? Gone my way instead of His Way? Yet each time anew He receives me as the lost sheep. Each time H tell me that He died for me and that His grace is sufficient.
And I?
I must do the same to my brothers and sisters – forgive and receive them. I must be a stepping stone for them and not a stumbling block. I must be an instrument of His peace showing the Way home.
His Way and not my way.
Continue to work in me Lord so that I see clearly and help others to be rooted in You.
Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy.
O, Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love; For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; it is in dying that we are born again to eternal life.