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by Graham Pockett
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"Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors." [Matthew 6:12 NIV]
A couple of verses later He repeated this by saying:
"For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins." [Matthew 6:14-15 NIV]
Could Jesus have said it any clearer than that? He did not say: "forgive your enemy if he is sorry and apologizes to you". No, Jesus told us simply to forgive – no strings, no "ifs" and "buts". He also told us that if we did not forgive our enemies then God would not forgive us. Period.
Has someone hurt you and never been forgiven? Maybe you intend to forgive someone when it "feels right", or when it doesn't hurt as much as it does now.
Forgiveness is not a feeling but an action. You need to forgive the drunk driver who kills your brother, or the rapist who attacks your daughter, now – even if they never show any remorse.
Forgiveness may not heal them, but it will definitely heal you!
It isn't a matter of waiting until the hurt has abated, it isn't a matter of waiting until you feel that it is "right with God" for you to forgive them. Forgiveness is an action of the head, not the heart. Remember what Jesus said:
"...if you do NOT forgive men their sins, your Father will NOT forgive your sins." (emphasis added)
God will not forgive you unless you forgive others? Scary stuff.
The other core teaching of Jesus, closely allied to forgiveness, was that we should love our neighbor. When asked which were the most important Commandments, Jesus said:
"'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." [Matthew 22:37-40 NIV]
In Romans 13:9, while talking about how Christians should behave, Paul says:
The commandments, "Do not commit adultery," "Do not murder," "Do not steal," "Do not covet," and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: "Love your neighbor as yourself." [NIV]
Do you love your neighbor? Do you love the kid who drives past your door at 3am with his stereo playing at full volume? Do you love the owner of the dog who allows it to mess on your lawn and then doesn't clean it up? Forgiveness and love aren't just about the big things, but also about the little things too.
Maybe the only saving factor is that while Jesus told us to love and forgive our neighbors, He didn't say that we had to like them...
Paul sums up nicely how Christians should behave. In Philippians 2:3-7 he said:
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. [NIV]
Return to Part 1.
If you are ready to commit to the Lord do it here and now!
I pray you have found this article interesting and I would be pleased to read any comments you may have. However, my workload is such that I may not be able to respond to all mail. Address any comments to Graham Pockett.
Please note that this article is copyright and may not be reproduced without written permission (given freely for Christian purposes). Often it is better to simply link directly to this page!
All of Graham’s Christian writings (see below) can be download as a set of archived text files GrahamsWriting.zip (you will need an unzipping tool – like the free Stuffit Expander – to extract the separate documents from this archive).
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Last Updated: Wednesday, May 06, 2009