Redeemer Devotions for January 8, 2013

Love as God and the forgiving power of God being actualized among humanity may be

the foundation of mission.



Monday



When we are pulled into the life of forgiveness that is built upon the rock that

is God as love, watch out. The life that comes may not make the kind of sense we

have thought should be the foundation of our every move. Forgiveness takes what

we have planned out so well and inspires us to risk to live outside the bounds of

well-planned drawings and lines. Forgiveness means that failure and the horrible

prospect of 'falling short' may well be a part of what will come. But do we fear

that. No. We are a people already wrapped up by this God as love. When we fall short,

we are invited to get back up and boldly go forward again. Most often, that means

forgiveness is in the mix.



This does not mean that forgiveness is a 'free pass' that is cheaply handed out

without any new life. Forgiveness does count on God as love to work to heal and

reconcile and wonder about how we will risk another move and another day. When our

world does not have room for life that may need to be met with forgiveness, we dare

not risk. This is especially the case with love. If our world must be well-calculated

and precise how will be ever let their be love alive. Rather then embracing the

moments of brokenness and miscalculations, we cut them off and dare not work toward

the healing of all things - love in action. Mission within the body of Christ moves

out embraced by God as love and nurtured by the deep well of forgiveness that will

always open the day with what is possible within the loving creativity of our God.

Control must be left behind as long as control prohibits the power of God as love

among us.



Forgiveness takes us into another land. It is another world. It is the domain of

the Reign of God. It is not the same as our everyday world that does not now how

to forgive nor will it really tolerate forgiveness. Forgiveness risks being eliminated

- discounted - ridiculed. Why? At the very foundation of forgiveness is the love

we say is the character of our God. That kind of love will move from here to there

in order to make peace even when the things that make for peace may mean we are

thrown down and our own power dismantled. That is what love does - it makes for

peace - it is the power that re-unites the separated - it is that strange actualization

of forgiveness so that what has created the separation can be re-viewed. That reviewing

is a never-ending conversation that is being pulled into God's loving embrace. We

are invited to re-view our brokenness and separation so that something new will

have the opportunity to come alive among us. That something new is the land of the

domain of God as love. It is there that we face both the alpha and the omega - and

both are elements of God's love.



O God of love and new life, sometimes we only want to view the land of forgiveness

and yet you continue to bid us to come and live there within your loving embrace.

Grant us the courage to step forward and walk the land you have called promised.

Amen.