The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him and what came to my mind and heart in Colossians 3:13,
"Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you."
Paul asks us to forgive others if we have a grievance against anyone. He says to forgive as the Lord has forgiven us. How has the Lord forgiven us? What does that forgiveness look like?
Several points come to mind.
The first is that we are all sinful and culpable for that sin. We all need to acknowledge, along with Paul in Romans 3:23, that we all have sinned. We also need to drop all the justifications we embrace, that our sins are not so bad. "At least I am not as bad as that person...". Read what Jesus had to say of such an attitude, "The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector.'" Luke 18:11. People who harbor such misguided thinking find they do not convince God our Judge, "For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted." Luke 18:14. We read that the wages of sin is death, Romans 6:23. Since all sin, all will be headed to a fiery lake of burning sulfur, Revelation 21:8.
However, through no good of our own, God has reached out to us. He tells us of his love for us, for all of us, every man, woman and child, John 3:16. It is while every man, woman and child is caught up in sin, and guilty for it, God expresses his love. To understand how the Lord has forgiven us, we need to realize that it was right in the middle of our sinful condition, thinking, saying and doing those things that grieve the heart of God that he reached out to us! Paul observes, "God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:8. To make it even more clearly, he says, "For if, while we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!" Romans 5:10.
This brings me to another thought. God's love, something we did not earn, something we do not merit, something clearly not due us for anything we may have done (indeed, what is due us is that fiery lake of burning sulfur) was manifested in an incomprehensible act of God: he sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to take the punishment due us upon himself! God is a just God and his sense of justice had to be satisfied if he were to offer us his forgiveness. He sent his Son to die on that miserable cross to pay the penalty for your sins and my sins. God's forgiveness flows from his love for us, a love we do not deserve, a love we did not earn.
Another thought that comes to mind is that God's forgiveness results in a full restoration of our relationship with him. He does not offer a "partial forgiveness" where he holds his nose around us. God's forgiveness is a complete forgiveness! Paul puts it this way, "For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight." Ephesians 1:4. Look at that verse... Paul says before time began God decided that he would forgive us sinners in such a way that we would be held in his esteem as holy and blameless!
God forgave those he considered his enemies - out of his love for them. God's forgiveness came at a great price he paid. God's forgiveness is freely given, not earned, not deserved. God's forgiveness restores our right relationship with him. He does not hold us at arm's length, but embraces us freely, just as if we had never sinned! What a forgiveness this is!
This is how we are to forgive one another!
Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share what moved you about him from your Bible reading today. I'd love to hear from you!
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