As I’ve mentioned before, I’m working my way through Scot McKnight’s book Jesus Creed. He has a chapter on forgiveness. I’ll summarize some of the points from that chapter in this post.

First of all, forgiving one another is not really and Old Testament concept. In the OT it is God who forgives Israel. The only significant example of forgiveness in the OT is Joseph forgiving his brothers. There are no commands in the law concerning forgiveness. We don’t see David forgiving his enemies in the Psalms. However, in the New Testament Jesus commands that we forgive one another. In the OT repentance is required for God to forgive us. In the NT Jesus now says that forgiving one another is required for God to forgive us. Jesus exemplifies the requirement that we have a disposition of forgiveness toward others.

So how do we forgive? First it is helpful to distinguish two dimensions of forgiveness. There is subjective forgiveness and objective forgiveness. Subjective forgiveness is the experience of forgiving – the releasing of emotion and the choice to end the internal cycle of offense. Objective forgiveness (sometimes referred to as reconciliation) is the elimination of the offense from the relationship. This isn’t always possible as it depends a lot on the disposition of the offender.

So, how do we forgive? McKnight outlines 5 steps:

1. Confront the offense and the offender’s responsibility
   • This is where I usually get hung up. I pretend it’s no big deal and try to ignore it.
2. Recognize the impact
   • This is required for subjective forgiveness to occur. We can’t release our anger until we recognize the pain.
3. Choose to pursue objective forgiveness
   • The victim chooses to “get over it”, absorb the injustice and offer grace.
4. Actively purse objective forgiveness
   • This takes time and wisdom and isn’t always possible; for instance, if the offender is violent and unrepentant.
5. Forgiving creates an alternate reality
   • By offering forgiveness to others they become alive in a way they did not expect and a cycle of grace is begun in their heart.

So there you go. Forgiveness in 5 easy steps. Easier said than done.

I’ve been asked to do a couple of devotionals for the staff here at Cedarview Alliance Church. My topics are confession (which I’ll post today) and forgiveness (which I’ll post tomorrow). I thought I’d post them here to share with y’all.

Let’s talk a little more about Saul. In 1 Samuel 15 we find Saul is given instructions to attack the Amalekites and completely destroy them and all of their belongings. Saul disobeys. He attacks the Amalekites but keeps the best of their livestock for himself and spares the life of their King. Samuel comes to town and Saul greets him. Saul’s first attempt in v13 is to ignore his sin, and to even assert his obedience. His next tactic is to dissemble as seen in v15. First he deflects blame to the soldiers (who were under his command) and then he offers a justification for his disobedience. He continues this denial and justification in v20-21. We get around something like an admission in v24-25, but he follows it right up with an excuse and then a plea for quick forgiveness and restoration. This pattern repeats in v30.

We never see a true confession from Saul. He really is the Pete Rose of the Bible! We see denial, deflecting, blaming and excuses. When he is cornered he admits wrongdoing but wants to skip ahead to reconciliation without any real remorse. Saul isn’t serious about sin. He never acknowledges that he has sinned against God. Contrast that with David’s confession when confronted by Nathan in 2 Samuel 12 and Psalm 51. Here we see a truly contrite heart. Let that be our model for when we confess our sins.

It is interesting that Achan’s words are identical to David’s words when confronted with his sin. Yet Achan is stoned to death, and David is spared, though the innocent son he fathered with Bathsheba dies. Who ever heard of someone innocent paying for another person’s sin with his death?

Scot McKnight has a great line about King Saul in his book “Jesus Creed” which I’m working my way through. He says that King Saul is the Pete Rose of the Bible. I find that line particularly insightful, though it may just be that spring training is about to begin and my mind is turning to baseball.

If you think about it though, was Saul any worse than David? David was an adulterer and a murderer. When you read the accounts of David’s post-Bathsheba era, he wasn’t much of leader. There was the whole Absolom debacle, the census he took that God told him not to take. Things were just unraveling for him. And yet Saul is Pete Rose. Why? I think the key difference was David’s heart. He was a man after God’s own heart. David sinned big, but he also repented from his heart. Saul never fully repented from his sin.

So, any other great biblical character/sports figure analogies? Please avoid the temptation to compare Jesus to Tiger Woods/Wayne Gretzky/Michael Jordan. This is a blasphemy free blog.

The Lord’s prayer has become a political football in the Ontario Legislature. I find myself unable to muster the requisite amount of outrage over this. I was actually surprised to find out that the Lord’s prayer was still a part of parliamentary procedure. The way things have been going the last several decades maybe we should be grateful it held out this far.

Let’s imagine for a minute that we “win” this battle and the Lord’s prayer is saved. What then? I think it would just continue as perfunctory ritual. Big deal.

The power in the Lord’s prayer is when we live the prayer. I’m currently reading Jesus Creed by Scot McNight. He writes that the Lord’s prayer is something we ask God for, but it is also something that God asks us for. He asks that we would make his name “hallowed”. That we would bring His kingdom, that we would do His will, that we would rely on Him for our needs. That we would repent and seek forgiveness and forgive others, and that we would give him the glory.

I think a real victory with the Lord’s prayer will be when we start living it.

Part of being created in God’s image is that were carry desire to create. As a musician I need to feed that inner creator. This is accomplished in many ways by preparing for Sunday morning service – choosing, arranging, rehearsing and performing the songs for a set of sung worship is a very creative thing. However it is different than creating music for the sake of music. As musicians we need to make sure we take the time simply to play for the sake of playing, rather than always using music to accomplish some other goal, such as to facilitate corporate worship, as noble as that is.

I’m blessed to be doing something very creative this week. I’m recording my songs to be released on a CD later this year. Coming together with the producer and the studio musicians is exhilarating and exhausting. What surprised me the most is how much fun it is! I haven’t had so much pure musical fun in quite a while. It is enervating. It is so stimulating to be working with these guys. I’ve learned a lot as about arranging, groove and sound. It’s been great.

So whatever it is you do to be creative, make sure you take the time to play at it! You’ll be refreshed and you’ll grow as an artist.

The past 24 hours have been an involuntary fast. The bug hit me at 4:00 in the morning. Half an hour of violence followed by a day of aching and dull misery. I’ve been ruminating a lot lately on Hebrews 5:8 which says “Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered”. So as I was in midst of evacuating the contents of my stomach I had this verse floating through the back of my mind. An observation that hit me was that in the midst of suffering the world closes in on me. The only thing that exists is my pain and my only goal is to find relief. I simply don’t care about anything else. Thanks to God that Jesus overcame this “closing in” and saw beyond the immediacy and intensity of his own suffering to endure the cross – for the joy set before him. It’s a frightening prayer, but I pray that I can endure suffering as Christ did, that when the world closes in on me I can see beyond myself and my circumstances and continue to live in obedience.

Well, I’m 37 and I’m finally celebrating (is that the right word?) Lent. I grew up in a non-liturgical church where things like Lent were viewed with suspicion. Things like Lent were either dead orthodoxy or salvation by works. My only memories of Lent were as a punch line. “Sorry Mom, I gave up lima beans for Lent.” I never realized that celebrating Christmas and Easter were a part of the same church calendar that included Epiphany, Ash Wednesday and Lent. However, owing in a large part to what I’ve learned about the church year through my studies at the Robert E. Webber Institute for Worship Studies I’ve decided to observe Lent.

I’m giving up desserts. I thought I should start out small since it is my first Lent. It isn’t much, but the fact that its going to go on for several weeks… maybe it isn’t so small after all. Anyway, I can report that after one day of Lent (today being Ash Wednesday) I can say that I’m surviving without my normal intake of sugar. I actually had a moment of regret after dinner tonight when my sons were having their ice cream. However, it was during that moment that I recalled why I I’m doing this.

Lent is a time to identify with the death of Christ. By fasting we are crucifying the desires of the flesh that wage war against us. By fasting we are liberated from the flesh and practice the discipline required to overcome sin.

And just in case any of you see me eating a cookie on Sunday… according to Bob Webber in “Ancient Future Time“, Sunday is a feast day, the day of the resurrection and a day that transcends time. Therefore I’ll be indulging in desserts on Sunday, and thanking God for victory that He won – looking ahead to Easter.

I hope that you’ll consider observing Lent this year and journeying with Christ toward the cross, learning obedience through suffering just as He did. Heb. 5:8

Well, here we go. I’m officially a blogger. The title of the blog stems from the fact that I’m an electrical engineer by training and spent the first 10 years of my career in that field. I think that in a sense I’m still an engineer. I used to create software that help people communicate. Now I try to create experiences and environments that help people to worship God.

I’ll be writing about issues related to worship ministry and the arts, books that I’m reading and whatever other ruminations I might like to share with the world. I’m hoping that the good people of Cedarview Alliance Church (especially those involved in worship ministry) might be interested in following the goings on around here, and that it will provoke some new thoughts on worship and spirituality.

And so with this inaugural post, I launch myself into the blogosphere.