I recently went to see a new film called The Vow, now this
blog isn’t about the film and I’m not going to spoil it for those who haven’t
seen it but one thing stuck out to me in one particular scene. On speaking
about a tough time in their marriage one of the characters says this “I choose to stay with him because of all
the things he did right, not because of the one thing he did wrong… I choose to
forgive him” My instant thought was Amen to that! I really thought that was
a profound thing to say and a strong message about marriage that I think this
society needs to take away with them…..as this is what sometime marriage can be
about, we need to be constantly forgiving towards one another whether it be big
or small. Now this doesn’t mean we should be doormats for to be walked all over
but it’s an important lesson. Now I don’t know much about marriage, simply
because I’m not married but I know that in any relationship grace is important as this is what I have
learnt from Jesus’ teaching and what he has done for me and as a Christian. It’s
also what I try and live out as well as other Christian’s I know.
I also recently read and interesting quote by Immanuel Kant “The state of peace among men living side by side is not the natural
state (status naturalis); the
natural state is one of war… A state of peace, therefore, must be established”. Now I’m not sure how relevant that this is but
I would agree that just as relationship between states needs to be worked on,
so does human relationship; whether it be in marriage or just in the way we
interact with the people we see every day. I would agree with this, we are can naturally
be selfish people albeit generally caring towards the people around us but at
the roots selfish… I know I am!
But if we’re not natural at forming good relationships then how do we
learn? Partly through trial and error, maybe through the example of our parents
and good friends; and these are important. However I would argue (in agreement
with the bible) that Jesus gave us the perfect example of how we should
treat one another and how we should act selflessly towards one another. And that’s
exactly what Jesus did for us he acted selflessly so that we could have
relationship with God our father in heaven. In a nutshell he came to the earth
he created, fully God and fully Human; “He
came not to be served, but to serve, and give his life as ransom for many” (Matthew
20v 28). Jesus selflessly gave his life for us so that we could have
relationship with God he spent his life on earth showing us how we should live
but more importantly revealing that we could have perfect relationship with God
through the forgiveness of our sins through sheading his blood for us,
defeating death and rising three days later! He showed us grace and it is only
by grace that we our saved.
It’s also how we should be in our relationships with others,
graceful and loving! From the top of my head I can think of two occasions where
Jesus teaches us this so clearly in Matthew 22v 34-40 and Matthew 19 v 16-20. In
both of these parables Jesus talks about Loving our neighbour… he talks about
putting other before ourselves!
Hope this all makes sense… If not just comment and I’ll try
and make sense of what doesn’t =D
Peace out!
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