I have blogged about forgiveness a couple times before. It is something I am passionate about dishing out, because far too many times I have been the one seeking it, needing it.
Everyone on the earth sins. Point blank, we are all sinners. Everyone wrongs someone every now and again. Sometimes intentionally, with complete congnizance of doing so, sometimes completely unintentionally, and quite often somewhere between the 2 extremes.
I can only imagine how much God's heart hurts when His own children are the ones hurting others.
The greatest example of forgiveness comes to us in John 19. With Jesus willingly giving His life on the cross for wretched people such as myself. So undeserving. Nothing shouts pure and honest forgiveness like letting someone nail your hands to a cross after lugging your own death tree up a hill, letting them smash a crown of thorns onto your head, and letting them whip you until blood is drawn and dripping from all over your torso, arms, and legs.
All the while, knowing You and Your Father above have every right and possess the omnipotence to get Yourself off that cross, to stop it all before it even began. Jesus cried, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Matthew 27:46b
God the Father, the Son, and the Holy spirit. The Trinity. Three-in-one. But for a moment, God had to turn His face. Imagine the torment it caused Him to see His only Son suffering such pain, and for such undeserving people.
He didn't die on that cross just for me, but He did die on that cross FOR me. He endured unthinkable, unimaginable, excrutuating pain, for me? For this undeserving and disobedient sinner? But, why?
Some things in life make total and completely clear sense. Attending school, graduating and attending college. Moving out of our parent's homes to blossom on our own. Finding, courting, and marrying your true love. Birthing beautiful children and raising them to love and worship our Lord. But then there are hiccups, if you will, in the road of our life, such as burying a child, losing a parent at a young age, and I liken the confusion of those kinds of events in life to trying to understand God's willingness to offer forgiveness to the likes of us.
It comes as hard to believe, especially for the 'unbeliever,' that a man can die and rise again. Even having been a believer for most of my life, sometimes it still blows my mind. And maybe it isn't event the fact that He died and rose again, on His own will and power, though being a nurse I know that only God could have made that possible. But maybe, it is the fact of His death; the suffering and agony that He endured, all for us. For us, such filthy, sinful, and undeserving creatures that we have become since Eve ate of the forbidden fruit in the garden. Maybe that is what is most awe inspiring to me.
That love. That forgiveness.
'For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.' John 3:16 A widely known and quite possibly one of the most popular verses in the Bible. He SO loved the world that He created, though it had turned into such an evil place full of sinners like me, He loved the lowest of us, SO much, that He sent His Son to suffer and die on a cross, to forgive us of our sins. Sent His Beloved, to pay for sins that we committed. Not Jesus paying for His own sins, for He was perfect, spotless, sinless. Yet He suffered a torturous death, FOR US.
'For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.' Ephesians 2:8-9 No matter what you have done, or not done (sins), in this life, no matter how much money you give to your church, no matter how many children you adopt, how many highways you clean up, how many lives you have impacted for Christ, no. No matter what, you don't deserve the forgiveness God offers, but that is what makes it so overwhelmingly awesome, and thus should make us all the more thankful for receiving it without even having to earn it. So dish it out, even when it seems the offender doesn't 'deserve' it, because neither do we. God commands us to forgive in Matthew 18:21-22, where Peter is asking how many times he should forgive his brother for sinning against him, and Jesus replies, not just 7 times, but 7x70 times. Over and over again we should be forgiving those that sin against us.
So take what you have done into consideration in your daily life. If you were to add up all your sins, does the cluster even compare to the wrong that has been done unto you? If Jesus was willing to love you enough to die on a cross for your cluster of sins, does forgiving the wrongdoer seem so hard now? Forgiving is loving. Show Christ's love in every way possible everyday. We are not here to hold grudges, but to love and show Christ to those that don't believe. So forgive others, believers and unbelievers alike, we all need to see and feel Christ's love through the actions and words of Christians around us.
'Be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, even as God also in Christ forgave you.' Ephesians 4:32
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