Aug 14 Wed
How many times should I forgive?
One day, I was taken aback by the words, “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” And still, their significance had never quite hit me. “Forgive me, God, the way I have forgiven others?” Given how bad I am at forgiving others, that seems more like a prayer for condemnation rather than forgiveness. Probably, the prayer should be: “Forgive me, Lord, a whole lot better than I forgive others.”
“How well do I forgive people?” Because, if I’m not forgiving others, what do I expect God to do? Or to put this another way: Given how much God has forgiven me – like a $10 billion debt that I could never repay – how in the world could I justify not forgiving someone a puny $10 debt?
Stated that way, that problem is pretty obvious. But I’m often struck, both in myself and in others, by how easy it is to forget how much we’ve been forgiven.
“But they have to repent!” you say of others. To God, yes; not to me. If God were waiting for an adequate repentance from us to forgive us, He wouldn’t have sacrificed Himself on the Cross before we repent. He forgives us and then we repent so that we can enjoy the fruits of that forgiveness. We don’t earn God’s forgiveness. If God doesn’t wait for our repentance to forgive, why would I?
Christ said, “The measure with which you measure is the measure with which you shall be measured.” That’s terrifying. But I suppose you could take it as a challenge.
The point is, you would be saying to God: “Yes, I take responsibility for the way I forgive others. I know you have forgiven me a lot – a whole lot (in fact, let’s not get into the details right now) – so now I intend to ‘pay it forward.’ So, God, you hold me to that standard because I want to be like You and love with the kind of love You showed in and through Christ.”
The God who reveals Himself in the Scriptures is a God of justice. So yes, we must seek justice. We cannot simply let murderers and rapists and rapacious dictators and graft-taking politicians roam free to plunder the innocent. But it is one thing to discipline our anger at injustice to bring about justice, reconciliation, and peace; it’s another thing altogether to let our anger run wild so we feel “justified” excoriating and abusing those we consider “vile,” “sinful,” and “reprobate” (totally unlike us, of course).
You have to wonder sometimes when you hear the anger, hatred, and sarcasm spewed out daily whether these people somehow live under the illusion that they’ve never sinned, that they’ve never been forgiven, and that the measure with which they measure – that little, tiny bit of thimble-sized tolerance they show – won’t be the measure with which they will be measured.
Excerpts from Randall Smith.
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