Christian Maturity/ Forgiveness

Forgiveness; being defined it means, "the act of forgiving; to pardon an offender by the which he is considered not guilty".(Noah Websters American Standard English Dictionary).

Forgiveness, and true forgiveness, can only come by having a personal relationship with Christ. It was his forgiveness that allowed us to have a personal relationship with him. Pretty elementary biblical principle. However, when we do come to a personal relationship with Christ, then we also must understand that he expects us, actually requires us to follow in his footsteps. Why should we forgive others? I've listed below three reasons that we should forgive others.

1. Christ commands us:

a. Mark 11: 25-26: Jesus speaking here explains to the disciples, and, to us as well, that if we cannot forgive others, then his father, God, will not forgive you. A statement that is not made of man but of Christ himself.

b. Luke 17: 4: "thou shalt forgive him". No matter even if it is seven times he comes to you and repents of his wrong against you, Christ says then seven times "thou shalt forgive him". When Christ uses these two words, "thou shalt", it leaves no room for any mis-interpretation.

2. Paul compels us:

a. Eph. 4: 25-32: In this chapter and in these verses, Paul speaks of five things that we were once bound in or in bondage to in the former life before Christ, and the things we need to do to replace the former things now that we have a new life in Christ,(I'll leave it up to you to search these things out). The one thing we need to do is to forgive others. At one place in our life we would not forgive, but now that we are in Christ a new creature, we need to forgive others and work out what it is that brought us to the point of having to forgive and be forgiven. Verse 17 Paul says that "I testify in the Lord" in other words he is only restating what Christ has already said. He is compelling us to get to the point of our christian maturity that we can forgive. Ephesians 2:2 & 4:22 also compels us to this end.

3. Love constrains us:

a. Col. 3: 12-14: Here Paul speaks of Christian Virtues, and virtue being strength and morality. We are to be able to "forbear" and to "forgive". We are to bear with others and during this we are to also forgive. Understand that we all are developing our virtues and maturing in our walk that there will be times that others will do something that will either hurt our feelings, or, do something that will get to us, but we are to at that time be able to forgive. The problems that we have in this area is that we to often allow things to grow and grow until we get to the point that we have a difficult time talking with the individual let alone forgiving them. This should not be in the Christian life. Christians can disagree without being disagreeable.

b. 1 Cor. 3: 13: It is here stated that charity, love, is the greatest, even of faith and hope. When we love right then we will live right. We cannot love right if we do not have the love of Christ living and dwelling within us. 1 Peter 4: 8 says that "charity shall cover the multitude of sins". We will not continue to re-hash over and over what has been done to us if we love correctly. We will not talk to others about the issue before we talk to the one who has created the issue according to Matt. 18: 15-17. Love will truly cover our sins if we only live in the realm of a Christ like love.

I encourage everyone who reads this blog to examine yourself and see where you stand in the area of forgiveness, I know that I have.