This is the Truth Network.
So, in order to walk worthy of the calling which I was called, it's extremely urgent that I. Bear with one another in love. Or forgive to some extent, and how in the world can I do that?
Well, that would appear to be a process. We're going to dig into that process today on what God showed me today. This morning the Holy Spirit led me back into Ephesians chapter 4 and I kind of honed in on chapter 4 verse 2 which is where we're going to spend today and that is reads with all loneliness and gentleness with long suffering bearing with one another in love And Again, we spoke a whole lot on the lowliness and the gentleness, the humility, the door that those open. It's spectacular. But the bearing with one another in love has a lot to do with the Hebrew idea of forgiveness, which in Hebrew that word is Nasse, and it has to do with either carrying a burden or forgiving.
And so as I studied those words and thought about the process of forgiveness, I couldn't help but note that I struggle with it a whole lot. There are people, it seems like, I keep trying to forgive, I forgive them again and again and again, and it's a process, right? And sometimes I'm not so sure I got there. And so as I looked at that this morning, I found something extremely helpful. I feel like I made a bit of a breakthrough.
I hope it helps you in that the word NASA has got just three letters like most Hebrew words. And my challenge with letters was that it starts with a nun, like we've talked about in the both ideas of meekness and lowliness. They start with a nun as well. And it has to do with, as we talked about, this servant, this humble seed that has fallen into the earth and begins to take root. And clearly, once you've been offended or you need to carry some kind of burden, whatever that may be, a seed gets planted.
And so what's going to happen with that seed is handled beautifully with this idea of NASA. And it's not only there in the in the Hebrew idea, but it's also there In the temple process of the scapegoat that would carry the burdens of the sins of the Jews, but it's also beautifully, amazingly in the idea of. Isaiah chapter 53, which we'll get to here shortly. But again, the next letter in the Hebrew word Nasse. or forgiveness or b carrying a burden is this um Letter shin, and that is the idea of refining or oxidizing something, chewing something.
All of them fit into that. And so here's this seed that's going to be refined. As we talked about, it's a seed of some kind of burden. It could be that you've been sinned against, or it could be you got a donkey you need to put some stuff on. It's okay.
And the last letter is the beautiful letter Aleph. We've talked a lot about this week, which the first letter in the Hebrew alphabet has to do with the Father and God and the Alpha, so to speak. And so. Yeah. Fascinatingly When this particular word is employed with forgiveness, the one that is literally refining is God.
If you allow him to refine it. In other words, if you actually do, in fact, NASA, and you lift that up to the Father, then he refines it. Have done your part, so to speak. The challenge is: are you going to let that seed continue to grow in his plot, or are you going to take it back into your plot? Ultimately, if you'll truly trust God to do things with that offense and that he will handle it appropriately.
But it's a fascinating thing to me as we begin to transfer that idea of the scapegoat. You might remember Leviticus chapter 16, where it talks all about the scapegoat. And when you do that, they would. Put the sin On the scapegoat, and then they would offer this other goat to the Father. And it was really a picture of this word, and it would be a picture of Isaiah 53, and certainly what Jesus did on the cross.
And so, when they put the sin on the scapegoat, it would move actually outside the camp into the wilderness. In other words, it changed locations, it was no longer there, which would be wonderful, wouldn't it? With our forgiveness if we could change the location of it and no longer were carrying it, but the scapegoat is carrying it, which in this case would be Jesus, which it's the Father that sets that up along with the sacrifice. And so, now moving over to Isaiah 53, starting with verse 3, I'll just begin to read and see if you can't see the idea here. It says, He is despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
and we hid, as it were, our faces from him. He was despised, and we did not esteem him. Surely he has borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. but he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement for our peace was upon him. and by his stripes we are healed.
We, like sheep, have gone astray we have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. You see, fascinatingly, it is Jesus that is where that. process Was Healed for all time.
So, as we forgive others, it's a process that. We will be forgiven that Jesus actually did that. And so, as we take up those burdens. You know, again, allowing the father to take it outside the camp and refine it and letting it go to a different location is quite helpful for me. Both Jesus from the cross and Stephen in the book of Acts.
use the words, Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do. And the more I think about that, they're doing the very thing we're describing here, they're giving it to the Father. But it's very true that I never Probably ever know exactly what it is that I am doing. And so I need that kind of forgiveness. And so, of course, of course, whatever it is that's been done to me, that seed that's been planted, Lord.
Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.
So in the end, if I'm going to trust the Father with a refining process for me, How much more then should I trust him with the refining process for those You have sinned against me.
