21 July – Tony Philips – Petersfield United Reformed Church
Forgiveness
After reading part of a book” Reflections From The Heart of God” by Thomas and Nanette Kinkade, I felt drawn to write something of a response. The article in question was on the topic of forgiveness. We all get things wrong and I, myself, recognise that I require a greater need of Father God’s forgiveness than most, making me less qualified perhaps to comment on this subject!
The life of Christ and the Scriptures were designed to show us the way to live, yet many of the characters we find in the Bible failed to live by God’s plan for them in many ways.
Jesus knew that His life was to be given as the final sacrifice to cover all of humankind’s transgressions before The Almighty. Because He loves unconditionally each and every one of us, He died and rose again to life, becoming One with The Father and His Spirit.
We all need forgiveness in our lives, maybe we’ve made poor choices, been selfish in our actions, deliberately disobedient to what we know to be right, maybe we’ve excluded others in their time of need or caused pain, sorrow and even anger.
In doing these actions we also cause hurt and upset to our Father God.
If it is hard to say sorry, then it is perhaps even harder to forgive other’s transgressions against us. How often have we heard or maybe even said “I will never forgive them”?
Christian’s should be good at forgiving others but often are not because it does not come naturally. We are too easily offended, upset, enraged by “their actions”, or what has been said. It is too easy to become vengeful, difficult, rude and ready to retaliate.
This is the opposite of Jesus’s teaching.
Jesus taught us The Lord’s Prayer, and when saying it… we ask our God’s forgiveness as we forgive those who trespass against us ! Jesus emphasised this transaction saying clearly you can’t have one without the other !
Jesus paid the price for “our mistakes” offering us friendship, unconditional love, and a pathway to freedom from our sin. He tells us to forgive others and then request forgiveness for ourselves; being truly sorry for our mistakes and accepting Jesus as our Saviour and The Son of God.
His further gift when our earthly time is over is everlasting life, where all our blemishes have been removed making us finally acceptable to The Almighty.
Jesus paid the price and this gift is His to give; no one could ever earn it !
Should you be interested further, please ask a local church leader, attend an Alpha Course or google scripture on what Jesus or Saint Paul say on forgiveness.