I wanna be God!

Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord.  Romans 12:19

Don't we all have days when we want to be God? We want to judge those around us.  We want to dish out appropriate punishment. We want to deal with the offender in the way we see fit.  The only problem? We were never given permission. The role of judge belongs to only One. It is His deal...His assignment alone.

When the temptation hits to take vengeance or to even judge our neighbor we need to remember that we are not only God, but that...

God is watching us, and He knows our sins.

What a sobering thought! We can't stand as judge and jury for someone else simply because we are weak like they are! We are in the same courtroom that they stand in! He is the only Righteous One. He judges fairly, whereas our emotions get in the way of making judgment calls worthy of respect.

One of the ways we forgive is by giving up the right to vengeance. God knows that with every offense there needs to be justice.  He only asks that He be the one to dole it out.

Another way we forgive is to not wait around to watch punishment being served to our enemies.  Waiting for their repentance (which may never come) and their punishment (which is between them and God) means that we are still holding a grudge against them.

Do not gloat when your enemy falls;
when he stumbles, do not let your heart rejoice,
or the LORD will see and disapprove
and turn his wrath away from him.

Proverbs 24: 17-18

The only way to forgive is to give up being God...