By Pastor Matthew
In all this there is hope, biblical hope, not a relativistic one. In Scripture we find people that were cut to the heart because they saw that God had made Jesus Lord and Christ, but they had killed Him. In other words they were utterly at odds with God. They were living against His will. They were out of step with His character. They were in violation of His Word and His Son. God was one way. They were another way. And they did not have His affirmation. Nor should they have had their own.
What they desperately needed, and what we need, and what God, in amazing grace was ready to give, was forgiveness. They had offended God. They had violated God. They had disobeyed God. And there was only one hope-that God might find a way to be the holy God that He is and yet let it go, and forgive them. This is what was accomplished by God and is found in the death of His Son. Scripture states that we need to “Be saved from this crooked generation.” And the most crooked thing about this generation is that we have created ways of salvation without God and therefore without law and therefore without forgiveness-and therefore utterly without hope. However, on the basis of God’s Word there is a God, there is a holy law, and in the name of Jesus Christ there is forgiveness. That is the first need we have. And God stands ready to meet it.
The petition for forgiveness is identical with the petition for the coming of God’s kingdom: “Your kingdom come, your will be done; … and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors!” To live by forgiveness is already to participate in the life of God’s coming kingdom. To practice forgiveness in all our day-to-day social interactions is already to show the power and the life of God’s kingdom. For the kingdom of God-the kingdom that Jesus announced, the kingdom that is now approaching all history like a fast train from the future is a kingdom of forgiveness, a kingdom whose fundamental economy is one of unconditional, liberating love. To live in the power of this liberating love is the meaning of Christian freedom through forgiveness.
By Pastor Matthew
To forgive, therefore, is not only a personal act; it is also a social and political act, an act loaded with the promise of a new future for our world. In international relations and in domestic penal policy, it overturns the politics of vengeance. In social relationships, it overturns the demand for retribution and compensation that the violent would demand to be given what is due them. In the first century the early Christians interpreted Jesus’ entire ministry as a liberating act of debt-cancellation: in Jesus, the Year of Jubilee had arrived, a time in which all debts were written off, so that the poor could be released from their financial servitude. This, too, is what forgiveness means today. This is what we are asking for when we pray: “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors!” The prayer for forgiveness is a revolutionary act, a radical contradiction of the whole economy that underlies the accepted patterns of thought (relativism) and behavior which drive our culture.
God's way is Absolute and Straight Forward!
One of the saddest things about the relativism of our day is that it undermines God’s forgiveness. Relativism constantly minimizes or denies the absoluteness of God. It functions implicitly as if God had no clear and unchanging character-as though there were no divine measure for human character. Relativism does not get along well with biblical statements like, “Be holy for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:16), or, “Be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). So relativism minimizes the absoluteness of God and His will.
But relativism maximizes the absoluteness of self. It says that the way to healing and wholeness is to stop measuring yourself by external standards or expectations, even God’s. Instead, without reference to God or his Word, be yourself. Make yourself the measure of what is good and acceptable. Give yourself an unconditional positive self-regard. The only role that God has to play in this relativism is to be the divine endorsement of your own self-affirmation. God functions as a kind of booster for the absoluteness of self. If He presents Himself as one with standards or commandments, then He is part of the problem, not part of the solution.
Another sad thing about this relativism is that it undermines the glory of God’s grace in forgiveness. It sounds gracious on the surface-to say that God has no law, no standards, no expectations, no commandments, no threats-that he is simply there to affirm me in whatever I happen to be. That sounds like grace and freedom. But there is one massive glitch. It destroys forgiveness.
Where there is no law, no just standard, no legitimate expectation, no normative way of relating to God and man, there can be no forgiveness. Because forgiveness is the letting go of real offenses, real transgressions, real violations, and real faults. But if there is no law to transgress, or no standard to offend against, or no expectation to violate, or no commandment to disobey, then there can be no forgiveness. What looked like grace turns out to be the undermining of grace by the undermining of forgiveness.
By Board of Directors
This note is a statement from the Board of Directors of LightHouse World Evangelism, Inc.
On Monday May 4, 2009, Pastor Matthew was admitted to the ER for major chest pain and abdominal pain. After a CT Scan and an Endoscopy it was determined that he has a bleeding Ulcer where his stomach meets his small intestine. Pastor Matthew was hospitalized for four days to treat the Ulcer and insure that he was out of any danger.
Pastor Matthew is now home from the hospital where he is resting. The ulcer will take betweeen two and four months to heal, and was brought on by stress related issues. Please be in prayer for Pastor Matthew and his family as he recovers from this painful health issue.
We the Board have determined that the June 15th date for his return to full time ministry will now be postponed indefinetly as we see how his condition progresses. Pastor Matthew still remains as the President of LightHouse World Evangelism, however, in a more limited capacity. We believe that God has a lot more work for Pastor Matthew to accomplish, however, at this time his health needs to be a number one priority.
If more information arises regarding Pastor Matthew’s health, we will keep you, are partners, notified. Thank you for your continued prayer and support of LIghtHouse World Evangelism. Please know that our ministry outreach will continue in the midst of Pastor Matthew’s recovery and we have great hope that Pastor Matthew will be back in full-time ministry, teaching his seminars, and traveling by the end of Summer or early Fall.
The Board of Directors
