9th August 2024
How we can forgive
Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. Ephesians 4:32 (NIVUK)
Our God is a forgiving God; it is his nature to forgive, restore and heal. We can have confidence that God forgives not only because of who God is, but also because the biblical scriptures promise that he will forgive. It is one thing to know at an academic level that God forgives, but our experience of his forgiveness is directly related to our willingness to take him at his word.
The author of Hebrews explains that our assurance of forgiveness rests on nothing but the atoning blood of Jesus (Hebrews 10:19-22). When we come to God for forgiveness, he promises to remember our sins no more (v. 17). God has pledged not to keep a record of our iniquities (Isaiah 43:25). This means that if we go back to God with issues that he has already forgiven, he will effectively say that he has no recollection of what we are talking about because he has chosen not to remember them or bring them up again.
Taking her cue from Micah 7:19, Corrie ten Boom has said, ‘When we confess our sins, God casts them into the deepest ocean, gone forever…I believe God then places a sign out there that says No Fishing Allowed.’ 1 God’s example is meant to be the model for how we forgive others.
When we forgive others, we promise three things: that we will not bring the matter up with that individual again; that we will not bring it up with anyone else, and that we will not bring it up to ourselves. No fishing allowed!
How can we do this? Our starting point is a recognition that we want to share with the other person what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. Our genuine forgiveness of someone else flows out of an awareness of, and sense of thankfulness for the forgiveness we have received from Jesus. Forgiven people make for forgiving people.
Is there someone you need to forgive? Is there someone I need to forgive? We may not feel like extending forgiveness to that person, but as a recipient of God’s forgiveness in Christ, we are called to forgive as he has forgiven us. That is not easy, but it is possible. We are not on our own as the Holy Spirit enables us to do so, as he pours God’s love into our hearts (Romans 5:5). And then we will find: ‘To be forgiven is such sweetness that honey is tasteless in comparison with it. But yet there is one thing sweeter still, and that is to forgive. As it is more blessed to give than to receive, so to forgive rises a stage higher in experience than to be forgiven.’ 2
Prayer
Loving Father, we pray that we would forgive like you do, so that we may grow in your love and others may see your love through us. In Jesus’s name, Amen.
Study by Barry Robinson
1 Corrie ten Boom, Tramp for the Lord.
2 Charles Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Volume 31, p. 287.
About the writer:
Barry Robinson is a minister in Grace Communion International and Regional Pastor for Southern England, the Midlands, and Wales
Local congregation:
Grace Communion West Hampstead
Sidings Community Centre
150 Brassey Road
West Hampstead
London
NW6 2BA
Meeting time:
Sunday 12.30 pm
Local congregational contact:
Gordon Brown
gordon.brown@gracecom.church
Word of Life contact:
wordoflife@gracecom.church