Forgiveness

1 John 4:20-21: If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also. (NKJV)

Matthew 6:15: But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. (NKJV)

Luke 17:3-4: Take heed to yourselves. If your brother sins against you, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times in a day returns to you, saying, 'I repent,' you shall forgive him." (NKJV)

So, you call yourself a Christian – a Bible believing Christian – and yet you refuse to forgive those who may or may have not wronged you. Even worse, you refuse to forgive someone who has come to you and asked you to forgive them. How can a heart get so hard?

The problem is that there are those who call themselves Christians who deny major parts of the Bible they disagree with – those parts that threaten their desire to hold grudges or harbor hates or bitterness. Now how can one call themselves a Christian and harbor these feelings?

There are those who say they have forgiven others, yet they refuse to forget the sin against them. You cannot forgive without forgetting. Jeremiah writes of the forgiveness that God gives to those who seek his forgiveness: “For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.” (Jeremiah 31:34, NKJV).

Jesus in the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant (Matthew 18) spoke of one who had been forgiven an immeasurable debt, only to refuse to forgive someone who owed him $25. His master found out and held him accountable for his unforgiving attitude.

A. W. Tozer said: “We evangelicals also know how to avoid the sharp point of obedience by means of fine and intricate explanations. These are tailor-made for the flesh. They excuse disobedience, comfort carnality and make the words of Christ of none effect. And the essence of it all is that Christ simply could not have meant what He said. His teachings are accepted even theoretically only after they have been weakened by interpretation.”

I believe that if anyone refuses to forgive can call themselves Christian, but that does not make it so. Only those who have experienced forgiveness can truly forgive. So, if one cannot forgive or is unwilling to forgive, they cannot have known forgiveness in Christ.

So, have you forgiven those who have sinned against you? Are you willing to do so? Or are you avoiding “…obedience by means of fine and intricate explanations,” as Tozer says?

If you reuse to forgive, then you cannot of been forgiven and you are still in your sins.