Worship for Today: The nature of God's forgiveness.

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him in Ephesians 4:31-32,

 

"Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you."

 

Here is an interesting observation. We are to forgive one another just as God has forgiven us. In painting a picture for us as to what a life lived worthy of the invitation we have received from God, 4:1, Paul presents us with the manifold aspects of taking off the sinful "old" person we used to be and to put on the "new" person, "created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness." Verse 24.

 

My experience is that these kinds of passages seem to be almost universally ignored by almost everyone we fellowship with. How many do you know are given to what Paul asks of here in this chapter? Not many I suspect. A precious few to be sure. We find much of the same material in Colossians 3. Another passage we seem to "skip" over in our Bible reading. I don't think I'm being overly cynical here, just honest. We seem to pick and choose what we feel is important in Scripture and ignore the rest.

 

But... I digress. Paul says to forgive others as God has forgiven us. Just what does God's forgiveness look like? When we forgive others (a rarity in my observation) we often hold something in reserve. "Cross me once, shame on you, cross me twice, shame on me." Does God hold something "in reserve" against us when he forgives us our sins? What we are told is astonishing to me. In chapter 1, verse 4 Paul tells us that God chose to hold us "holy and blameless" in his sight. He decided this before he even created the world that his forgiveness would reach this far! In Jude's wonderful doxology we read, "To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy..." Jude 24. "Without fault"!

 

This isn't because we haven't had any. God has chosen to forgive us as though we had never done anything wrong! Amazing to me...!

 

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share your thoughts of worship with us from your Bible reading today. We'd love to hear from you!

Trevor Fisk
trevor.fisk@gmail.com