Forgiveness

 

 

Top four reasons to forgive (Bible) survey says....

1. “Be merciful even as your Father which is in heaven is merciful- forgiving(Lk.6:36). (Mt.18:35) God forgives, therefore we are to forgive.

2. God has forgiven us of a huge debt more than our brother ever owed to us. The offence my brother made against me, does that compare to my insults against God??? (Read Mt.18:20-34)

3. Jesus did! Jesus forgave those that crucified Him, as He said:
“Father forgive them for they know not what they do.” We may have had our ego’s crucified but not our body lately.

4. We are wrapped in a prison by our unforgiving spirit. We are tormented by it. Indeed part of hell for people is the suffering that comes from not forgiving. Why add injury to the insult.

Objections to forgiving....yes they exist.

Is forgiveness forgetting?
Yes...and no.
The word for forgive is afhimi . I leave something. When we forgive we leave it alone. It is behind us. In English we talk of remission of sins. This is accurate- just like a bill you are remitted of a debt so when we forgive we have remitted- cleared the balance someone owes us of love and respect.

God said concerning our sins,” I will forgive their iniquity and their sins will I REMEMBER no more.”

This does not mean we have to put confidence or trust in them again, we just can’t hold the sin against them- that is the sin of grudging.

"Why should I forgive him? (notice him...) He did this twice yesterday. He will never change."

How often should we forgive then ? Wellll,.... How often do we sin??? Every day. Not just 70 times but 70 times 70 we need forgiveness.

"I just can't forgive him, it hurts too much..."
How do we deal with the bitterness from the injury some one did to me?

All we can say is Christ is the Physician of our souls who can take the bitterness of life and turn it into blessedness if we allow Him.
The bitter cup of cursing in life is turned to a cup of blessing by His cross.

Hope for Us all: Yes God’s chosen saint, David, was a murderer, adulterer and thief and had major family problems.

David was chosen  by  God  to  be Israel’s king when he was about 16.  He was a simple shepherd boy who  played  music  in the field to his sheep  while singing God’s praise.  To  give a synopsis of his career:  he  is anointed as king  and has to  wait yeeeeears before he actually becomes  king.  When  he does  he gets a little slack  (sounds like our politicians?) Instead of doing  his kingly duty of going to war, he decides to stay  home  while every one fights.  He spots  a fair  lady bathing  and his heart is gripped.  He asks his servant who  it is.  It is the wife of one of his chief  soldiers Uriah.  No problem-  he’ll get the gal  Bathsheba somehow.  He Gets Uriah drunk, sounds him into the front line  and gets him killed.  Boy gets the girl.  To  sweeten  things  she gets pregnant.  Well the Lord is not happy with  David to say the least.  He  gives David a personal  visit from  His prophet Nathan  who  lambastes him for abusing  his position  and taking a man’s wife and killing him.
David repents.  This is the occasion for the writing of the 50th  psalm  we read at Orthros.  “God have mercy on me a sinner.”  He loses reign  of most of the kingdom, loses the child through miscarriage, loses his best friend, loses  his joy of salvation,  loses his family.  His  son  then ends up rebelling against him and nearly killing him. 

God’s saints teach us a lesson.  And don’t we learn better from examples good or bad?  God  will restore His favor to  us when  he heed the prophet or man of God.  But the consequences of our actions can take time to mend.  We reap what we sow, sometimes the harvest is a little earlier than we thought, or later.  Let’s thank God for His abundant mercy.  There is no  extreme  God cannot forgive or heal,  just the refusal to be healed.