At a conference last year, we saw a video of Immaculée Ilibagiza speaking and I have recently read her book, Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust.[vii] I will inevitably share with you more than one story from this book as it is one of the most powerful books I have ever read on power of forgiveness and the power of love.
She lived through the Rwandan genocide: her mother, father, 2 brothers and many of her friends and extended family were among the up to 1 million people murdered by machete in 1994. She speaks about when it was all over and she first returned to her home and saw what had happened to her family. It was almost overwhelming: the devil tempted her with hate and with the sins of plotting, or considering, or fantasizing revenge; Sin tempted her to hope for bad things to happen to the people who killed her family, or to think bad things about those who tortured or/and killed her family. Sin was crouching at her door wanting to devour her while she was in her grief but she was not mastered by it: she refused to hate those who killed her family and thus give Sin power over her life. At one point she asked and was granted a chance to see a person directly responsible for killing some of her family members. She walked into the jail where he was held. The guard brought him out and threw him into the room where she was. Standing by the man, the guard prepared the man to hear what she had to say about what he did to her parents. She said, ‘I forgive you’ and she meant it. She evaded the sin of un-forgiveness that was crouching at her door ready to devour her. Forgiveness is a big part of love and John says that the love and forgiveness of God can deliver us all from the power of sin.
All of us have at some time fallen prey to sin. We have been captured by hate, or harm, or actions, or thoughts that have embraced us like the clutches of a predator’s claws but the love and forgiveness of God can free us from that sin. He offers us all – no matter what has been done to us and no matter what we have done – he offers us all the opportunity to be free from the power of sin. 1 John 2:1: “My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father – Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.” Any of us who are even now trapped by sin or tempted to be trapped by sin in some way, I invite us even now to pray that we experience that freedom from the power of sin today.
She lived through the Rwandan genocide: her mother, father, 2 brothers and many of her friends and extended family were among the up to 1 million people murdered by machete in 1994. She speaks about when it was all over and she first returned to her home and saw what had happened to her family. It was almost overwhelming: the devil tempted her with hate and with the sins of plotting, or considering, or fantasizing revenge; Sin tempted her to hope for bad things to happen to the people who killed her family, or to think bad things about those who tortured or/and killed her family. Sin was crouching at her door wanting to devour her while she was in her grief but she was not mastered by it: she refused to hate those who killed her family and thus give Sin power over her life. At one point she asked and was granted a chance to see a person directly responsible for killing some of her family members. She walked into the jail where he was held. The guard brought him out and threw him into the room where she was. Standing by the man, the guard prepared the man to hear what she had to say about what he did to her parents. She said, ‘I forgive you’ and she meant it. She evaded the sin of un-forgiveness that was crouching at her door ready to devour her. Forgiveness is a big part of love and John says that the love and forgiveness of God can deliver us all from the power of sin.
All of us have at some time fallen prey to sin. We have been captured by hate, or harm, or actions, or thoughts that have embraced us like the clutches of a predator’s claws but the love and forgiveness of God can free us from that sin. He offers us all – no matter what has been done to us and no matter what we have done – he offers us all the opportunity to be free from the power of sin. 1 John 2:1: “My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father – Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.” Any of us who are even now trapped by sin or tempted to be trapped by sin in some way, I invite us even now to pray that we experience that freedom from the power of sin today.
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