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)

If you’ve missed any of this little series and want to catch up on it you can see the first post here and here, and my third one here, and the fourth one here.

I’ve said that forgiveness and forgiving are the heart of the Christian life, and you cannot be an authentic believer without accepting your personal need for forgiveness and then struggling to pass forgiveness on to others.

I’ve also shown that to forgive is to let go, to separate yourself from the pain, shame and resentment streaming from past injuries. One of the Greek words for divorce is actually translated divorce! (You’ll just to read those past posts to find out where that occurs! Heh, heh!).

So today I thought I’d talk a little about how we can actually begin the process of letting go of it all and holding only to God and His future for us.

Step One: Bite the Bullet!

Biting the bullet actually comes in two steps – or should I call them bites??

Bite One – Acknowledge the fact that I have to do this!

You aren’t going to get anywhere until you can admit that you have to do this. Like it or not, want too or not, happy or not. It really doesn’t matter at this stage.

You have to admit this is God’s will for you – period. I’m a bit amazed at how many Christian people actually try and use the Bible to support their disobedience of the Bible! It’s incredible!

The plain fact is Jesus commanded us to forgive, He didn’t say we could if we wanted too, or that when we get really spiritual then we’ll be able to forgive. He also didn’t say that we should forgive only if the person or persons in question are sorry about what they’ve done or seem to deserve forgiving to us.

Nope – He just said forgive! If the verse I’ve been starting every post on this subject isn’t enough for you – here’s a few more to meditate on.

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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)

If you’ve missed any of this little series and want to catch up you can see my first two posts on this topic here and here, and my third one here.

Yesterday I defined what forgiveness is from the words used in the New Testament. In case anyone’s interested I thought I’d let you know how the word is defined at dictionary.com.

1) To excuse for a fault or an offense; pardon.
2) To renounce anger or resentment against.
3) To absolve from payment of (a debt, for example).

As you can see it’s similar to the New Testament words, but different as well. That’s one of the reasons I took the time to run through what the Greek words are because there’s a depth to them that helps us grasp what it is God is commanding us to do when He says we must forgive our enemies.

To continue to look at what forgiveness is I’m going to differentiate between forgiving and forgiveness. I realize this is just semantics and is purely arbitrary on my part, but I think it’s necessary to drive home an important point.

I’ll use (for today only most likely, though I may refer back to it later) forgiving to refer to what we are commanded to do as disciples of Christ, and forgiveness to describe what God has done for us in Christ.

Forgiveness (what God has done for us in Christ) is a gift given to us by God. In Christ our sins for forgiven immediately when we repent and cry out to God, because of the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross and His resurrection.

We are declared forgiven and right with God in an instant. This is why “it was credited to him as righteousness.” The words “it was credited to him” were written not for him alone, but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness–for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification. Romans 4:22-25 (NIV)

This forgiveness from God continues to be active in our lives to continue to cleanse us from our sins as we ask Him too. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1:9 (NIV)

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This week’s Christian Carnival is up and running, be sure to check it out as there will be a lot of great articles for you to read over and think about!

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)

If you are interested you can see my first two posts on this topic here and here.

Yesterday I talked about what forgiveness isn’t, today I want to talk a little bit about what it is. We have to have both things clear in our minds before we can actually progress to the point of forgiving those who have wounded us.

So what does it mean to forgive? I hope you’ll forgive me (for both this pun and what I’m about to do) but to really grasp this we need to get into a little Greek. I know, I know, it’s all Greek to you right? Well it’s mostly Greek to me to tell you the truth!

Did you know that I flunked out of Greek in Bible College? Well I did! The only way that I snagged my humble BA was by taking a year of Hebrew, taught during our lunch hour by a dedicated Professor Netting, because not enough students had signed up to make the class viable to the school. God bless you wherever you are Mr. Netting!

Getting back to the issue at hand I want to look at the three most popular words translated forgive in the New Testament. Both give us critical insights into what it means to forgive.

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I found a great site yesterday, one that is dedicated to G.K. Chesterton.

If you’ve never heard of him, Chesterton lived in England from 1874-1936. He was a brillant writer and commentator, who gave his life to Christ and thereafter devoted himself to defending and explaining the faith.

Check this site out – and if you’ve never read him go to the quotes page, amazing stuff there!

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)

Yesterday I talked about how forgiveness and forgiving is the heart and soul of the Christian faith. I also believe you cannot possibly live anything approaching an authentically Christian or healthy life without it.

I’ve heard people vehemently exclaim that they cannot and/or will not forgive! Calming them down I’ve had some powerful and usually painful conversations that revealed many things to me. I’ve seen the depth of their pain and very often I’ve also seen the bitterness that is spreading through their soul, even though they don’t know it.

And I’ve also seen that most people don’t know what forgiveness really is! Yes, this applies to Christians as much as anyone else. Remarks like, “it’s not fair,” or “I won’t let them off the hook,” or “but they were wrong,” all indicate a huge misunderstanding of what forgiveness and forgiving actually is.

So here’s a few of the common fallacies I seen about forgiveness.

Forgiveness is not saying what was done was right, good or okay. In fact it’s just the opposite. For some reason people seem to think that to forgive is say, “its okay.” That’s not true.

Forgiveness is not minimizing what happened. Years ago in my first ministry I learned this lesson the hard way. After church a lady in the church who was, and is, a friend of mine approached me. She said that she was wrong in what she said and the way she had said it. She would have said more but I interrupted and did what most of us have learned to do, I said that it was okay, no problem and that she didn’t need to worry about it.

Read more »

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)

Forgiveness is the heart and soul of the Christian faith. It’s why Christ died; it brings us into relationship with our Father God through the Lord Jesus Christ.

However, forgiving is often a heart rending agony for the person who’s trying to forgive someone who’s deeply wounded them.

What I want to do today is to discuss why forgiveness and forgiving is so critical to our faith. Both forgiveness and forgiving are central to being and living like Christ.

The New Testament clearly teaches that our sinfulness is what keeps us apart from God. This is a real problem when you realize that sin is being defined by God’s standards not ours. So sinful people aren’t limited to Hitler, Stalin, Osama Bin Laden, etc.; anyone and everyone who has broken any of God’s Laws has sinned and therefore is sinful and in need of forgiveness.

You can’t find forgiveness by just saying, “I’m sorry God.” That’s nice but it doesn’t erase the act of sin itself. From the very beginning God has demanded a sacrifice for sin to wash away the stain of sin. In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. Hebrews 9:22 (NIV)

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Questions are just as powerful as answers in many ways. After all if we didn’t wonder about things and ask the right questions how would we ever get the right answers?

I often tell people that there are no such things as stupid or silly or bad questions, just stupid, silly and bad answers! That’s true as long as the question is an honest one.

So here’s what I’m going to do. Below I’m going to list some questions that are either ones I’m dealing with or that I often hear others ask or wrestle with.

What I want you to do is to respond in the comments section. You can say whatever you want of course (tho spam, bad language, etc. will be deleted), but what I’m looking for is the questions YOU are grappling with right now.

If I happen to hit one of yours, please let me know, otherwise feel free to share what’s on your mind!

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Why is the church so slow to respond to cultural shifts in appropriate ways in order to relate to and reach the world more effectively?

What can be done to change this and “get with it” without leaving Biblical truth and revelation behind us?

How can I get more people to read and return daily to this blog?

Why is the church, in America at least and from what I can tell most other places, doing such a poor job of transforming believers’ lives into the image of Christ?

Why are we so obsessed with finding “spiritual formulas” that guarantee results (like healing, answered prayer, prosperity, etc)?

After all this time why do so many people still cling to their denomination or brotherhood, or whatever you call it, and fear cooperating with their fellow believers in evangelism and ministry?

Why is it so easy for so many American Christians to become passionate about politics, sports, hobbies, etc., but not about Christ and their service to Him?

Why is it that I can happily and easily spend hours reading Military History or Science Fiction or Fantasy or whatever else I’m interested in, and find it hard to read the Bible for even an half hour?

If prayer is communication with the living God, why is it so boring for most of us?

Why does anyone support Benny Hinn?

I think it’s a terrible waste of time and Kingdom resources to have an entire Ministry devoted to prophecy. Yet they exist and some flourish! Are their supporters’ nuts or am I?

Why is most “Christian fiction” like the Left Behind series, etc, so bad?

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I’ll talk more about why I’m doing this later

[When I came to the close of my recent series on Ephesians I wanted to do something to help my congregation carry the message of this great book with them. So I wrote 30 Daily Devotionals and handed them out in a booklet.

In the meantime, here's the first devotional, just some food for thought for everyone. Let me know what you think okay?]

Day 1—Ephesians 1: 2

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Ephesians 1:2 (NIV)

If you look at something long enough, you cease to see it. We’ve all experienced the truth of this. What was once thought beautiful now goes largely unnoticed.

We have seen Paul start so many of his letters using the expression “grace and peace” that we don’t see it anymore either. But we must force our minds to focus on this short opening line. Because it contains two vital components for living a spiritual life.

One almost everyone admits to needing and wanting, the other is often either ignored or denied. We all want and need peace, but often reject the very thing that produces it—grace.

You cannot have peace with God until you first accept and experience His grace. It’s not until your lay down your pride, your belief in your own ability to please God, and accept that your entire relationship with God is based on Christ’s grace that peace is possible.

Once I know that my acceptance with God is a gift that Christ purchased on the cross, and then accept it gratefully, then I can really experience peace with God.

Paul does not begin with this phrase simply because it was traditional. He does so because it’s the perfect beginning to this letter. This is the one and only start line on the journey to Authentic Spirituality.

Paul proves this by spending three chapters showing us all that Christ has done for us in Christ. Over and over again we are going to see the marvelous grace of God in Christ.

If you want to understand and benefit from Ephesians this is the critical point. Without a proper understanding and experience of grace, all the Bible knowledge in the world won’t produce one iota of peace!

So, what is your relationship with God built upon? Works, knowledge, church attendance, charity, community involvement? If you want peace lay all that down and accept salvation and new life from Christ, Who said, “It is finished.” He paid for it—we must now accept it through faith.

Reflecting on the Word

Take a few moments today and honestly evaluate what you are basing your relationship with God on.

Is it works, self, or the wonderful grace of Jesus?

Spend some time in prayer accepting God’s gift, and allowing His peace to flood your soul.

Responding to the Word

Now that I’ve renewed my reliance on the Grace of Christ alone as the foundation of my relationship with God, what can I do today or this week to express and live out this incredible reality of the Christian life?

Well I’m back from my Mini-Vacation in San Diego.

Truth to tell I feel much, much better – even if it was too short! But the change in climate, escape from the daily grind and the company of a great friend gave me much of the healing I need!

I hope to post something tomorrow!

God bless and keep on supporting the Marshian Chronicles with your daily visits and prayers!