The Negative Scoreboard

A scoreboard is a board on which one displays scores in a contest. Score keeping to most people is like winning their opponent in a game, usually a game of rivalry. We tend to keep scores with people around us, like members of our families, friends, and relatives. Score keeping is a trait that shows that we do not love the other person the way we should. If we have God’s kind of love for one another, it should cover up a multitude of sin, which the other person may commit, i.e. Agape love overlooks any sin, shortcoming and mistakes of the other person. I Peter 4:8 says, And above all things have fervent love among yourselves: for love shall cover the multitude of sins. The man, who wrote those words, experienced this kind of forgiving love himself. Remember he totally let his Lord down, denied Him three times in Jesus' greatest hour of need, but he found that Jesus did not hold that against him. In fact, when he finally got together with Peter individually after His resurrection, Jesus said, "Do you love me?" That's all He wanted to know.

We tend to keep score in our relationships, we rack up a negative point when someone fails us, or hurts us, or slights us, or in any way blows it. It was Peter who asked Jesus how many times he was expected to not score things someone did against them, to forgive them. Jesus said, "Seventy times seven." Let it go 490 times! By that time, who's counting anymore? (Matt 18:21-22)

Maybe a relationship of yours is suffering because you've been keeping score with your mate, your son, your spouse, your daughter, or your parent? Maybe you've been racking up points against your friend, or your co-worker, or that person at church? And when they do something that bothers you or hurts you, you figuratively roll your eyes and say, "There they go again." And you put another mark against them on your negative scoreboard. In fact, those marks ultimately become a negative filter through which you view everything that person does. They can't do anything right - even their good is explained away or it's unrecorded because it doesn't fit your negative grid. Now, could it be that you keep bringing up those negatives, especially to make your point? Someone you're supposed to love may be drowning in your critical comments, your judgmental attitude, and your negative assumptions.

Well, that's how Jesus is treating you, and now He's asking you to treat other people with that same kind of grace and mercy. Not to treat them in the way that they have treated you, but to treat them in the way that Jesus has treated you - and Jesus has had a lot more to forgive than you ever will. Colossians 3:13 say, forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.

It's time to put the scoreboard away isn't it?