How Much Pain Can I Take?

    A friend told me recently he was wrestling over a problem with Christian. God impressed him to talk to Steve, a wise friend who he hadn’t seen or heard from in months. Later that morning he pulled into a service station and there at the pump next to him was Steve. Steve was in a hurry and didn’t have time to do anything other than say hello. But as he drove away he shouted back, “If you can’t do it out of love, don’t do it.”

    As my friend meditated on Steve's comment he asked himself, “How much pain can I take and still love?”

    What a question?

    Doesn’t that point us straight to Jesus? At the very moment of his death, Jesus looked down on all those involved in bringing him to the point of death. He offered them forgiveness. Pardon! Clemency! Mercy! Absolution! Exoneration!

    The people may not have fully understood what they were doing, but we know what they did.

    They beat Jesus, spat in his face, humiliated him, forced a crown of thorns upon his head, made him carry his own cross, and then they executed him.

    The typical response of a condemned man dying on a cross was words of hatred and bitterness. But Jesus shouted words of forgiveness, “Father, forgive them...”

    By speaking forgiveness God treats all who repent as if the offense against Him never happened. We are to go and do likewise.

    How much pain can you take and still love?