Seventy Seven part 4
Seven is an important number in the Bible. It is the number of perfection, or rest. God created the world in six days, and rested on the seventh. If you are living from that posture of rest you are living in the seventh day. But, specifically for this Rant series, we are looking at it in the context of forgiveness of sins. And, even more specifically, us forgiving each other when someone sins against us. Now, before I drop my memory verse I just want to kind of reiterate that, to me, sin is unbelief. Not believing that God loves us. So when someone sins against you, that simply means they are acting without love. Which really means that they are acting from a place of not knowing that THEY are loved. So in that case, forgiveness would be about more than just saying, "I forgive you." It would be about loving them. Giving them what they think they don't have. Filling them up with what God has filled you with. Letting the love, and the truth, and the mercy, and the grace, and the forgiveness of God that's inside YOU come out. Ok. So look at 2 Chronicles 29:21 (NLT), "They brought seven bulls, seven rams, and seven male lambs as a burnt offering, together with seven male goats as a sin offering for the kingdom, for the Temple, and for Judah. The king commanded the priests, who were descendants of Aaron, to sacrifice the animals on the altar of the LORD." Seven is the number of sacrifice in this case. It is the burnt offering. The sin offering. And, like the woman at the well, it is culminated in Jesus. He was the seventh man. The perfect man. He is the once and for all offering. And look at 2 Kings 5:10 (NLT), "But Elisha sent a messenger out to him wtih this message: "Go and wash yourself seven times in the Jordan River. Then your skin will be restored, and you will be healed of your leprosy." And the remarkable thing about that story is that the man with leprosy wanted something hard. Some great feat. Probably so that he could feel like he "earned" his miracle. When, in fact, all he needed to do was wash. Seven times. The number of perfection. We always seem to want to make things harder than they are. We always seem to want to have to climb a mountain in order to get what God has for us. When, in truth, He has brought every mountain low and every valley high. He has made the way (that leads to life) both straight and narrow. And while some people might see this as restricting (guess what, self-control is a fruit of the Spirit. You CAN do whatever you want but that doesn't mean you SHOULD) to me I think it makes things simple. And, if we ever stray to the left or the right, there's a voice from behind us (the work that was finished over 2,000 years ago) keeping us on the right track. So we don't have to wonder if we're doing the right thing--we just have to listen to our hearts. If you're doing it heartily, to the best of your ability and because it's in your heart to do it, you're doing the right thing. If you're doing it in love, for love, because of love, out of love... you can't go wrong. And that doesn't mean you will always get the outcome you think you will. Love is not about control. Love is simply about giving what you've got. Love is about seeing a need and meeting it. Love is about laying your life down for your friends. Receiving what God has given you and giving it back to Him back giving it to the people you come into contact with. So when we're looking at numbers in the Bible... seven is an important one. "Forgive someone, what? Seven times?" Nah. Seventy times seven! Forgive someone EVERY time. Because God has forgiven you... every... single... time!