"No Record of Wrongs"

It seems there are too many people that are CPAs and accountants! It's true. I am speaking of those who keep count of the wrongs of others. It seems there are marriages where each wrong is recorded on the pages of the mind or in the church where someone holds to a number of times they have reached to help someone only to be hurt by them and they recall those wrongs when necessary. We need to love enough to confront people in sin, that's biblical! We need to let things go when we are sinned against, that's biblical!

I hear people speak of grace but some of those who speak of grace, giving it definition are very graceless in their own lives. They are more concerned with operating on numbers! We seem to wear a badge of righteousness: so many good deeds done, so many evil deeds resisted. We share with others those we help, how we have put ourselves out there in situations like we are the front line of the battle against sin. In the end, our spiritual condition is easily determined by the number of points we have accumulated by what we have done. I have known of one congregation where they keep a record of the righteous deeds done by members! They have a sheet to keep tabs through the week and turn them in each Sunday.

My phone rang and a member of church was chewing on me because in their words, "That's the third time you have done this!" The sad truth of the matter, they were right!! As this person began taking my life layer by layer, I realized that three wasn't the magic number. I said little because if I responded in any other words, they would think I was denying what they thought was so bad. (In reality, it was just an oversight of something.) It grieved me and I felt badly. They were right but their spirit was graceless and wrong! "Love does not take into account a wrong suffered." (I Cor. 13:5) Love is not a record keeper of wrongs. Love does not do what this person did, even though I deserved it. Listen, those who love will rebuke our hearts when absolutely necessary but they will not keep an account of the wrongs!

What do we do with those who keep failing? Are we talking about sinners like ourselves? What do we do with ourselves? Do we urge one another to keep an account of the wrongs of others so they won't notice their own failures? When people fail us, hurt us and we isolate them because they have failed over and over you will eventually drive out the desire to live for God! We need to be more Christ centered, more grace receiving and giving because Christ sees all of us for who we really are and He is working to make us what He wishes. But here is the greatest blessing: He never keeps a record of wrongs of repented sin! NEVER, EVER!

What was that you said? "Yes, but...."?