Establishing Foundations: Forgiveness

Forgiveness is something every Christian experiences, this comes from the Father. Forgiveness implies atonement has been made. It is the act of God's mercy. Ex 34:6. Just as we have been forgiven of much, God expects us to forgive others of much. Luke 6:37 says if we forgive we will be forgiven. The greatest act of maturity is our reaction to someone else's sin when it affects our life. Forgiveness is a decision made in advance. Failure to forgive not only affects us now, but can eventually be detrimental to our lives. The second stage of unforgiveness is bitterness. When we get dust in our eyes, we cannot see clearly. Unforgiveness leads to bitterness and our spiritual sight is fogged. Decisions are all made in the framework of unforgiveness and bitterness. If bitterness is not dealt with, it pollutes our well of living water within us and only bitter streams flow. This unnecessary particle leads to plugging our heart and hardness of heart enters.

This is now the most critical stage as the flow of life in Christ now stops. God expects us to forgive since we have been forgiven much. Read Matt 18:21-35. In this parable, it is asked how many times should I forgive my brother. The answer is 70 x 7 or 490 times. This really means an endless amount of times. In this parable, we see a servant who has been forgiven much now making demand to be restored what someone else owed him. He had no need of the money to pay his debt as it had been forgiven. Jesus explains it best. Matthew 18:32-33 Then his lord, after that he had called him, said unto him, O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desiredst me: Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellowservant, even as I had pity on thee? He goes on to say that we will not be able to truly be forgiven unless we forgive others as we have been forgiven. The question now arises: if Jesus Christ has forgiven them, then how can I not forgive them? Are we in a higher position of authority to make this kind of judgment call? I think not. Forgiveness is not really an option that we can decide to forgive or not. It actually is expected of us, to come from our heart and not with lip service only.