THE KISS OF LIFE
Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other. Ps. 85:10.
Some people think that in order to show mercy you have to ignore truth. "We'll just pretend it never happened!" Forgiveness becomes a mind game: when you say you're sorry, it cancels out what really happened. You no longer have to deal with the facts; you just "pick up and go on." The problem is that the unhappy incident is likely to recur, because pretending does not change people.
Can you show mercy and still embrace truth? Our text today declares that God has done just that in the plan of salvation. He has shown great mercy to our fallen world in giving us His Son. And in the giving He also proclaims the unbiased truth about the sin problem. When, in Christ, He covered our sins, He was not pretending that we were never really separated from Him. He showed us what happens to people who choose to turn away from God, their life source. However, He mercifully enacted it out upon Himself so that we could live to benefit from the lesson.
In God's Son, "righteousness and peace have kissed each other"--the very kiss of life! For we see that God is at peace with the human race and that we have been brought back into right relationship with Him in the person of Christ. But it is no mind game; it is genuine and attainable. In Christ we see how the Father and mankind may relate to each other. We see how easily the Son of man entered into discourse with the Almighty, and how very good and satisfying Their friendship was! It was not as one god to another, it was you and I and the Sovereign of the universe!
God can and does deal with the reality of our separation from Him. The very reason He desires us to confess our sins is that we might come face-to-face with reality. When we have done so, He quickly assures us that He still loves and accepts us. He then counsels us, guiding us into new social patterns and better ways of living. Our broken relationship with Him is healed, and we are ourselves at peace with God and with one another.
As Psalm 85:11 says, "Truth shall spring out of the earth,"--we shall know God and understand ourselves--"and righteousness shall look down from heaven," for God shall be pleased with us.
Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other. Ps. 85:10.
Some people think that in order to show mercy you have to ignore truth. "We'll just pretend it never happened!" Forgiveness becomes a mind game: when you say you're sorry, it cancels out what really happened. You no longer have to deal with the facts; you just "pick up and go on." The problem is that the unhappy incident is likely to recur, because pretending does not change people.
Can you show mercy and still embrace truth? Our text today declares that God has done just that in the plan of salvation. He has shown great mercy to our fallen world in giving us His Son. And in the giving He also proclaims the unbiased truth about the sin problem. When, in Christ, He covered our sins, He was not pretending that we were never really separated from Him. He showed us what happens to people who choose to turn away from God, their life source. However, He mercifully enacted it out upon Himself so that we could live to benefit from the lesson.
In God's Son, "righteousness and peace have kissed each other"--the very kiss of life! For we see that God is at peace with the human race and that we have been brought back into right relationship with Him in the person of Christ. But it is no mind game; it is genuine and attainable. In Christ we see how the Father and mankind may relate to each other. We see how easily the Son of man entered into discourse with the Almighty, and how very good and satisfying Their friendship was! It was not as one god to another, it was you and I and the Sovereign of the universe!
God can and does deal with the reality of our separation from Him. The very reason He desires us to confess our sins is that we might come face-to-face with reality. When we have done so, He quickly assures us that He still loves and accepts us. He then counsels us, guiding us into new social patterns and better ways of living. Our broken relationship with Him is healed, and we are ourselves at peace with God and with one another.
As Psalm 85:11 says, "Truth shall spring out of the earth,"--we shall know God and understand ourselves--"and righteousness shall look down from heaven," for God shall be pleased with us.
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