Theological Commentary: Click Here
Discipleship Focus: Forgiveness
- Forgiveness: Forgiveness is when our sins are absolved by God. We do not deserve this forgiveness, but God grants it to us anyway. We cannot earn forgiveness, but God gives it to us anyway. As we are forgiven by God, He also asks us to forgive others. In fact, Jesus Himself teaches us to pray for our forgiveness in the Lord’s Prayer when He says, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”
Today I
am going to dive deeply into a few specific verses as we look at this idea of
forgiveness. It was Proverbs 14:9 that
got me thinking along these lines. How
many people mock the idea of giving back to God out of gratitude? How many more people mock the idea of making
sacrifices because of our guilt! We don’t
like to be caught in our misdeeds much less have to make recompense. We should be elated that we can be forgiven
of our misdeeds and find reinstatement of our relationship with God. Yet we become bitter from the consequences of
our actions instead.
Then we
hit Proverbs 14:13. Although this verse
isn’t specifically talking about the topic of forgiveness, I believe it is the
perfect perspective through which we can see forgiveness. Joy can be the end of grief. Yes, we sin.
Yes, we make mistakes. Yes, there
are consequences of our actions. All of
these things can bring us grief. But we
can know forgiveness. We can know
restoration. Joy can be the end of our
grief.
As I said
in the beginning, none of us likes to make a mistake. None of us care to be found lacking. None of us really care to see our faults –
much less see them exposed! But the good
news is that our error does not need to be the end. We can know forgiveness in
spite of our sinfulness. God’s grace is
the end. That is a very good thing.
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