Forgiveness Part 2

This article is a continuation of my article on Forgiveness that was published on May 20, 2011.  To read the article, go to http://www.examiner.com/bible-study-in-winstonsalem/forgiveness.

In the first article we were looking at the parable in Matthew 18:21-35.  How does this parable relate to us?  Let’s break it down.  In our lives the king is God, we are the servant being forgiven, the debt is our sins, and the servant that was not forgiven is everyone else.  Just as the king felt mercy for the servant and forgave him his debt, God has done for us.  Just as God has forgiven us so we must forgive others. 

Ephesians 4:32 tell us to “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.  God also tells us in Matthew 6:12, 14-15 “And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.  For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”  We must forgive each other because God tells us to. 

We must prepare ourselves to forgive by putting on the attitude of forgiveness.  How do we do this?  Wolf Salewski of Taylorsville, NC says, “If we have an attitude of forgiveness we have dealt with the problem within ourselves.  Until we do we are not ready to forgive.”  George Vedder, an elder at Taylorsville Bible Chapel, quoted Thomas Chalmers, “Unforgiveness is the poison we drink hoping another will die.”  Let’s think on that.  Do we really want the person asking our forgiveness to die?  Surely not!  Even worse, having an unforgiving spirit may very well cause us to slowly die spiritually.

During the discussion of this topic a great question was brought up.  Why do we not want to deal with forgiveness?  The general consensus was because it requires us to look within and we will then see our own shortcomings.  It is our human nature to want to think ourselves better than others.  Forgiveness requires humility which means we must step down off the pedestals we have put ourselves upon.

The main important conclusion we have come to here is this:  When we are asked for forgiveness our only option is to forgive.