Forgiveness

Colossians 3:13 - Bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.

 

Forgiveness is something that is so easily request from God, but is not so easily given by us with our “thin-skin” to others. We tend to keep track of how others offend us, but do we guard against offending our just and holy Father God in Heaven? Our Creator, who created and sustains all sets the standards that everything and everybody needs to live by for physical and social stability, substance and safety. 

 

Proverbs 14:34 declare, “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.” Sin is defined as: The voluntary departure of a moral agent from a known rule of rectitude or duty, prescribed by God; any voluntary transgression of the divine law, or violation of a divine command; iniquity. “The Word of God is the “Moral Compass” for living the life that God intended us to live. Moral Understanding” is knowing the difference between right and wrong from those divine law, divine command, rule of rectitude or duty found in the Holy pages of the Bible. Calling out sin is going to be offensive to a Sinner, but conviction of sin is the path to repentance. And when they repent and ask for forgiveness, we need to forgive them with the same grace that the Lord forgave us. 

 

In Matthew 6:12-15 (the Lord’s Prayer), Jesus tells us to pray, “And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”The Apostle Paul explains in Romans 3:23-24, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” Forgiveness goes hand-in-hand with the two greatest Commandments of loving God and loving others, and the tranquil peace and stability of community, but centered of the foundation of righteousness and salvation in Christ. 

 

The Apostle Paul concludes in Ephesians 4:32 - Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. Holding bitter resentment inside and desiring revenge is an emotional burden and ta source of stress. This is released by forgiveness and giving our worries to God. In Matthew 18:21-22Peter came up and asked Jesus, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times. We are not to be mindless and used by others, but have a nature of forgiveness.

 

Ephesians 1:3-7 proclaims, ‘Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace.”

 

Forgiven in Christ, so forgive in Christ.

Brian