From the Heart

From the Heart.  The Father, as viewed through the parable of the prodigal son, wants reunification with his wayward sons (Luke 15:20). In the parable, both sons were lost, but only the younger brother who repented “was found” (Luke 15:24). Jesus wants reconciliation so deeply that he “gives his life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). The Spirit cries out within the hearts of the redeemed “as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons” for the fullest expression of restoration physically, spiritually, and eternally (Rom. 8:23). God is peace; God wants peace.

God wants relational peace with his creation and provides it vertically (1 Tim. 2:4). God also wants relational peace among his creation and enables it horizontally. “Forgive your brother from the heart” (Matt. 18:35). “Love your enemies, and do good, and lend expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6:35-36). Love, goodness, help, kindness, and mercy are God’s attributes. We who have been transformed by God resemble God over time. Paul explained this sanctifying principle as the “fruit of the Spirit” (Gal. 5:22). We display the fruit of the Spirit as evidence that God is present in our hearts. His sap, so to speak, flows through our veins, bearing his fruit: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Gal. 5:22-23).

Forgiveness makes similar lists as further evidence that God is present in our heart: “Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you” (Eph. 4:32). “Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony” (Col. 3:12-14). These attributes are the signs of eternal life, the evidence, the fruit.

The gap between our willingness to forgive, love, and bear with others, and God’s willingness to forgive, love, and bear with us is infinitely wide, but the spark is the same. At redemption by the decree of the Father, the accomplishment of the Son, and the application of the Spirit, Christians begin to want the same things that God wants. The transformation of our desires is a slow miracle, cultivated by spiritual growth, yet even slow miracles are still miraculous. Remembering our utter inability before believing in Christ to change what our hearts wanted reminds us again that “we love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19).

Even when encountering disbelief in others and their unwillingness to receive the forgiveness that we extend to them, just as we received it from Christ, it is still a fruit of the spirit. Another’s rejection of forgiveness does not spoil its miracle. We can legitimately forgive others (e.g., a one-way road) even if the reconciliation of the relationship is not restored (e.g., a two-way road). Love can be genuine even when it is unrequited; especially when it is unrequited. Mercy is no less merciful though it might be distrusted by the intended recipient. It is the desire for reconciliation that comes from God, because God is the Great Reconciler.