Good Monday morning! I'm a little slow getting underway this morning, must be a case of ... don't you say it; don't you dare even go that way. Okay, whew, mad urge to say a stupid movie line has passed. I had an interesting question this weekend. Who do we have to share Heaven with anyway? We look up toward Heaven and we look forward to that wonderful first meeting with our Lord Jesus, but who else might be there? This is a question we all might have wondered from time to time. That bully from back in grade school, will I meet him up there and have him remind me of all those times when he.... That is a hypothetical question there, my growing up years were not a tale of woe and misery. How about two guys that have every reason to be uncomfortable meeting in Heaven: David and Uriah the Hittite.
You will remember Uriah the Hittite: He was Bathsheba's husband before the king, that's David, arranged to have him knocked off at the front, so to speak, and then stole his wife. Actually, the order of events was worse than that. David took Bathsheba, tried to make friends with Uriah, got him drunk, took him from his place in the army with Joab, and generally tried all sorts of kingly shenanigans to hide his sin with Uriah's wife. Finally, with Bathsheba knocked up, David had Uriah knocked off. Now just suppose that one day these two run into each other in Heaven. That conversation might be quite interesting from our earthly point of view. However, let's just say that you and I get there.
We go to meet Uriah because we have some questions. Mainly, how does he feel when he sees King David ruling over Israel after so much sin that Uriah was the direct victim of. However, Uriah talks about God, the Son, the hosts of Heaven, his mansion in Abba's house... everything but what we think he would be worried about. It may not be that God erases the memory of all sins, but that those terrible events we experience here on earth just won't matter as much as we might think from our life here looking up. Uriah might even offer us some of that fruit to heal the nations; he might tell us that we are worried about the wrong things. As we eat the healing fruit and look around and finally see where we are, we might agree that ol' Uriah is quite right to not worry anymore about those things that have passed.
Even in this life we look back at our past, and worry too much about those things that have passed. Yes, the Accuser will maliciously dig up every sin from every regrettable incident from our past, but Jesus will tell us the same thing every time: "Forgiven!" If we ask God about that sin, we get the same answer each time, "What sin? I don't remember that." Grace is such a wonderful and undeserved thing. We might think that David should first be begging forgiveness of Uriah, wherever they might meet. But we would be looking at what we think we know from this world instead of what Jesus has told us in His word. When faced with his sin, King David begged God to forgive him. Even though David hurt Uriah, he went to God for mercy.
All sin is against God, even when we have hurt others in the commission of our sins. We can make restitution to the living and ask their forgiveness, but that will not save anyone. Repenting, seeking God's mercy, and obtaining the grace of God through his Son Jesus Christ will save anyone who comes to the Cross. Yes, it is right to ask forgiveness of those we have hurt, but like King David, we must bring our sins before God in repentance, seeking his forgiveness and obtaining his mercy to live.
Have a wundermous Monday!
Bucky
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