“If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins.
Always a failure in need of grace!Forgiveness defines the heart of Christianity. Only my trust in God’s forgiveness opens the door to my participation in eternal life. Trusting his forgiveness means that I recognize I am not capable of earning the right to be his child. I can never be good enough to deserve him as Father and his home as my destiny. I am his always and only because he graciously forgave and still forgives me.
No matter how much love he pours into me and no matter how much that gracious gift of love transforms me into a whole and holy person, I remain entirely dependent on his daily forgiveness. Here is one of the great ironies of the Christian life. The holier I get the more I realize no one is holy except God. With Isaiah I cry out, “Woe is me!”
So how can I not forgive those who sin against me? Sure, the more God makes me holy – like himself – the more I too will become a master forgiver. But this isn’t the context of Jesus’ words. Instead Jesus insinuates that no matter how far I mature, I am always a failure in need of grace. How can I not forgive those who fail me when I fail God? How can I not be gracious to those who hurt and offend me, when God is gracious when I hurt and offend him?
Any lack of forgiveness in me demonstrates that I am not fully relying on his forgiveness, but on a combination of his grace and my own merits. Somehow I am not as desperate for his forgiveness as you are. So, from my slightly or significantly better position than yours, I won’t forgive you. You are less deserving than I.
I know this feeling. I get very angry and unforgiving of those who I perceive hurt the church and who hurt me as a pastor. Those jerks! Don’t they see what they are doing? They are so judgmental, so rigid and pharisaical, so arrogant, so stupid. By resisting forgiveness, my actions call out, “I’m not as much a jerk as these – my sins aren’t as bad as theirs! But alas, they are. And I am just as desperate for God’s grace as they are. Whether or not they see this reality doesn’t matter. Jesus has spoken and revealed this reality to me. Now I must choose.
Grand Forgiver, truth is, I struggle with the sinful attitude of superiority – that somehow I am less in need of your forgiveness than several others. I am sorry and repent again of this attitude. Grant this sinner the grace to forgive other sinners, even and especially the ones I perceive as possessing a holier than thou attitude; those whose sin is a mirror of my own. – Mike Leamon
Forgiven to forgive
Forgiveness to me is always an act of God. I cannot truly forgive from the heart without holding it over the person I forgave without the work of God. I experience God’s forgiveness and grace and then am asked to pass along that work of grace to others. I become a conduit of God’s forgiveness into the live of others.
In the Catholic tradition you go to the priest for absolution (forgiveness) of sins. The priest acts as a conduit of God’s forgiveness into the confessor’s life. I do not believe you have to go to a priest to receive forgiveness (we have direct access to God through Jesus Christ), but I do think God wants us to be “priests” to others. God asks us to be conduits of forgiveness for other people.
This is such an important aspect of our faith, that to fail to forgive others, (be a conduit of God’s forgiveness and grace) is to stop the flow of God’s forgiveness into your own life. Perhaps our failure to forgive others is a demonstration of pride and self-righteousness. (They owe me, I did not do anything wrong, they need to realize how wrong they are and come repent to me.) Attitudes like this lead us away from repenting our sins to God and receiving his forgiveness.
God of forgiveness and grace I confess I am in need of your forgiveness. Help me to see how much I need you, and in return recognize my need to forgive others as an act of receiving your grace. I want to be an open conduit of grace and forgiveness today. - Dan Jones
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