today's sermon was titled In the Grip of Grace, speaking about forgiveness 2 Cor 2:5-11. It was a very good message for me, and indeed many a times we talk about forgiveness. but even when we say "i forgive" we tend to only forgive partially - we either forgive the "who" or the "what" instead of doing both. holistic forgiveness comes through 3 aspects, organisational, personal and spiritual.

Organisational dimension is the forgiveness through offering others fellowship (v6-8). The purpose of community, of church or cell or group of friends, is for restoration not condemnation. Often when we do not forgive, his/her spiritual wellbeing wil be so "overwhelmed and crushed by excessive sorrow". excessive sorrow..... would you want somebody's walk with God be stumbled or hindered because he/she is overwhelmed by this kind of sorrow that stems from your own unforgiveness ? 2 interesting words were shared, "Aphiemi" that means the practice of releasing something via a scapegoat (a real goal literally) into the wild. "Charizomai" is the extending of grace so that the person might be restored and welcomed into fellowship. personally regarding this point, a close friend of mine called last night and shared about the difficulties he was facing relating to his cg. it pains me when he shared that he couldnt get the fellowship and support he so needs from his own cg. because he feels that he is being judged and condemned by his leaders when he confesses his guilt stained and shameful behaviours. and this is one person whom i have always looked up to before I came back to God. and to see him in his back slidden state, after months of not contacting each other, because he could not find the restoration and forgiveness from his own brothers and sisters in christ was burdening. i was apalled when he said "dont mention the words 'brother in christ'!" I was overwhelmed with sorrow. I cant even begin to describe how sad i felt. how can we, as "own people" the chinese would say, not extend this forgiveness and restoration to our own brothers/sisters in christ. will we be able to answer to God, for the destruction we bring to other people by not forgiving them and offering them fellowship? no matter how bad a sin they commited against us, and ultimately against God, it is definitely not justifiable for us to condemn them forever. is someone waiting for your forgiveness today? have you (un)intentionally placed excessive sorrow upon someone? p/s: and to those altruisitic people out there, hope you can join me in prayer for this brother in christ of mine, that he'll find at least that one brother in christ to extend grace to him and path a way of restoration for him. and if you're thinking why i cant do it myself, theres only so much i can do as a girl.

In the Personal dimension, forgiveness is achieved through obeying God's commands (v9-10). this is one of the hardest things to do in my point of view, something that i believe needs to be internalized somehow. The 'right feeling' always comes from obedience, never the other way round. And even when we dont 'feel like it', we ought to obey God. When asked what's the greatest commandment in Matthew 22:37 , Jesus said "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment" If we claim that we abide by the greatest command of loving God, what are we doing to show our love for God? In the bible, it was written in 1 John 5: 3, "This is love for God: to obey his commands." We are instructed to love God in 1 John by obeying his commands. God has commanded us to forgive one another (Col 3:13), are we obeying him? Indeed, it is not just about obeying our pastors' instructions but obeying God's own commands. Furthermore, Pastor Edmund shared that we normally take things too personally, when actually sins are first committed against God alone. When someone does another person wrong in a community, the person does God wrong first and foremost. In Luke 23 during the crucifixion, when Jesus was being mocked and taunted- "if you are the king of the Jews, save yourself"; Jesus knew that the pharisees were sinning against Father, and hence said "Father, forgive them" and not "i forgive them". So knowing that we shouldnt take things too personally, lets exercise abit more love and extend grace to the people around us we have yet to forgive. (: and in order to forgive, we have to Decide to forgive, and let our decision not be based on the "feel-like-it" feeling, but decide based on knowing that we must obey God's commands to demonstrate our love for Him. (:

Lastly, the Spiritual dimension is forgiveness through opposing Satan's schemes (v11). The way Satan works is by winning mini victories when he successfully wedges himself between people in relationships. When we dont forgive and bridge relationships, we're just giving Satan yet another victory. think about it, why are we even blatantly building up his list of victories? What is your perception of satan in christianity? is he like THE object of your focus- to go all out and be against him? (think: falling down=satan's tripping me; no carpark lot=spiritual attack. haha) or is God THE object of your focus- to follow Him and let satan be a weak voice in the background? by not forgiving, we tend to let satan slowly creep into the first perception, and bit by bit, before we know it, our perception of christianity will be distorted from mainly following Jesus to being mainly anti-satan. We should put Christ at the center of our vision, a bright magnificent light, with satan as a tiny margin of shadow around the immense great light of God. When we decide to forgive and begin to forgive, Christ will fall into the centre of our life. God's kingdom will come and satan will just lurk around pathetically.

there are many things that hinder us from holistic forgiveness, of which is this the in built desire to want to fix the problem AND (or before) fixing the relationship. but God says, fix first the relationship, then fix the problem. the problem may take days, weeks, months, years to be fixed, or may not be fixed at all. but its that important? no. why isnt it important for the problem to be fixed? in hebrews 12, towards the end, it was mentioned that although there were people who "shut the mouths of lions", "received back their dead, raised to life again", there ARE people who were "tortured" "put to death" and "persecuted". Not that they were not worthy to be saved or to be fixed from their problems, but because "the world was not worthy of them". In v39, it was said "these were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect." the most important thing was not for the problem to be fixed, for all prayers to be answered indiscriminately, but the most important thing was their faith in God, their hearts that want to follow Him, obey Him and make Him their choice. choose today to fix the relationships, and we'll "all (be) commended". he doesnt promise solutions to problems, because we are planned for something better, but he definitely promises commendation. (: in saying this, i believe there are still some relationships whom God will choose to fix the problems of ultimately. i guess the bottom line is to not to be hard pressed about "tell me if this problem will be fixed or not and when and how" but rather, forgive each other, fix the relationships and surrender the problems and believe that His plan -whether or not for the problem to be solved- is the best plan for your life. (:

to end off i'll just share the closing story pastor edmund shared. (: There was once a guy named Parco, who lived in Spain (i think). One day, he committed a very bad sin against his father and he was so ashamed of himself, he just fled away from home. His father wanted to find him, but the streets of barcelona were too crowded and too vast. It was impossible to comb the streets to find him. So he decided to post a notice on the local newspaper and on the notice the father wrote "Dear Parco, please meet me on friday at 12 noon at Hotel Montana. I forgive you totally for what you have done. Love, Your Father." And so friday came and the father made his way to Hotel Montana at 12 noon. And outside the hotel, stood 800 men.... all of them happened to go by the name 'Parco', each waiting for their fathers to forgive them for whatever they've done......