Forgiveness might be one of the most difficult things that Christ Jesus tells us Christians that we must do. “Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven” (Luke 6:37). That is a definitive statement from our Lord and Savior stating the necessity of forgiving others. In Matthew a further refining of this commandment is made as Jesus tells us of the consequences of unforgiveness. “For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive you your sins” (Matthew 6:14-15). Unless we forgive then we will not be forgiven. He is not telling us that we must forgive Christians only or Christians and our neighbors, but we must forgive all men when they sin against us. The implications of this are very important to our Christian life. This statement tells us that forgiveness, like faith is a fruit of grace and if we are unable to forgive then we are not truly under the grace of God.

You maybe wondering why I feel that forgiveness must be a fruit of grace. In the Scripture verse above, Christ tells us that forgiveness is something that we must do and our salvation depends on it. Scripture tells us that salvation is through faith alone and not through works, “For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law.” (Romans 3:28) Once we accept that concept then forgiveness isn’t something that we can strive to achieve. We can not work to obtain the ability to forgive because that would imply that some part of our salvation rests on something we can earn on our own. Paul speaks against this and tells us it can not happen, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). Forgiveness is then on par with faith and is something that the Lord must give to us as we undergo the redemptive process established through the sacrifice of His Son upon the cross. When, because of grace, the Holy Spirit regenerates our hearts He will bestow the ability to forgive upon us like he does faith and belief. Before the gift of grace we were incapable of truly forgiving our enemies, but we now seek to do so because forgiveness has been made manifest in our spiritual nature.

Forgiveness now being a part of our spiritual nature, however, puts it at war with the flesh and our sinfulness,”So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.” (Romans 7:21-25). The flesh does not like to forgive unless it finds some personal gain in the action, so to freely forgive another who has done us wrong when we get no material advantage for doing so is abhorrent to the flesh. Spirit and flesh then face off in a battle for our very souls. Our desire to be righteous battles with our desire to hate and we become conflicted as sin uses this internal struggle to tempt us and to lure us away from the God who loves us. At this point if it were not for grace we would be lost. As humans we like to internalize our hatreds and nurture them because hatred feels good to our sinful nature. Hatred and anger can grow as they are fed by a false sense of justice denied. Eventually hatred can get so large and powerful that they take over and drive the spirit to demand retribution and vengeance. Sadly enough we do this in the name of justice and pretend to ourselves that our evil actions are good and the Lord is pleased with. As this makes clear, without forgiveness we run the risk of becoming slaves to our anger.

Like an addiction, the joy of hate will permeate the heart and soul and will drive a person on to new hatreds and new levels of vengeance. In the end it will consume a man and then Satan claims victory over another lost soul. However, because of grace and the strength that God has given us, the forgiveness in our hearts will eventually win out. Grace never loses nor does it take a back seat to our sinful nature. There are times in the lives of all Christians when the struggle against our sinful nature seems almost unendurable but as time goes by and we grow deeper in belief and faith the sanctification process that the Holy Spirit is performing within us allows us to become stronger and to stand firm against the evils and temptations that we encounter on a daily basis. However, the Devil never stops trying to take us from the hands of our Savior but the grip the Lord Jesus Christ has on us never weakens, “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand” (John 10:27-28).

Still, even with the wisdom that the Holy Spirit has imbued us with, forgiveness can be a very hard ideal to live up to. No matter the depth of faith a person has it is sometimes easier to follow the path of least resistance and indulge in some petty disagreement or some perceived slight. These are the very dangerous for ourselves and to those around us. Like it has been stated above, anger likes to grow and fester. What starts off as a small spat can soon escalate in to all out hatred. Even though as Christians we will eventually recognize the mistake and attempt to correct it, feelings get hurt and outsiders looking in begin to question what Christianity is all about if we act no different than those in the world that surrounds us. How many people have been inoculated against God by watching Christians war with and mistreat each other? Most observers will not remember that in the end the parties involved made up and let bygones be bygones, they will mostly recall the angry words and childish behavior. This is what they will tell other non-believers about. The next time someone wonders why the world has such a misconception of Christianity that person must realize that the blame for this lies mostly with Christians and professed Christians. Satan knows the souls of the elect are invulnerable but that does not stop him from using them to further his goals.

Now, all this leads to the questions “what is forgiveness and how does a person forgive?” It can be agreed upon that it generally takes more than a simple “I forgive you” most of the time. If you think about it you’ll realize that quite often when a person says that they forgive they are only paying lip service to the concept. There is no true forgiveness at all and the words are uttered just to say what needs to said in order to smooth over what ever grievance exists. Perhaps we can even act like we have forgiven the person in question but at best we are only fooling the person we need to truly forgive. At worst we may even be lying to ourselves but even then there is no way that we are pulling the wool over God’s eyes. He knows our intentions better than we do. We must forgive with words, actions and heart to be sincere in our forgiveness. We must for give and do our best to truly feel love for those who have trespassed against us. It doesn’t matter if they feel love or forgiveness for us. What is at stake here is our relationship with God and we must do our best to maintain our covenant with Him. God forgives us through the sacrifice of His Son Christ Jesus and we should realize that Our Lord has taken the debt upon Himself that our sin has incurred and paid the price for it in full with the redemptive blood of Jesus.

True forgiveness then is for us to do the same. When someone trespasses against us we should accept the burden of the cost to repair the trespass and pay it ourselves. Our sinful nature will fight against this because why should be pay a debt that does not belong to us. Our righteous nature, however, tells us to make good on the debt because it is the right thing to do. Isn’t that what righteousness is, doing the right thing for the right reason? What reason could be better than because it pleases the Father. We live to serve the Lord so we should be more than willing to do what ever it takes to please Him, especially if the cost will be our pride. The Lord wants us to be humble before Him and the before men so what could be a more perfect form of currency for God than the spending of our pride?

To be the type of disciples that Christ Jesus wants us to be, we must learn to do what He has commanded of us without hesitation. The harder something is to do then the more important it probably is for us to do it. Forgiveness is a hard ideal to live up to but it is so necessary to our spiritual well being that we shouldn’t let our guards down even for a second to indulge some petty slight just because it might feel good to do so. We know that God is watching and Satan is certainly keeping his eyes on us but we can never be sure who else is looking at us. That person might need to see Christians in their best light not their worse. That person may need to see that our love of God is so great that we are willing to relinquish our pride if that is what it takes to maintain harmony with God, ourselves, our brothers and sisters in Christ as well as the world at large. It might make that person watching wonder about and then want what we have.

God speaks to unbelievers and calls them to salvation in unusual ways but much of the time he uses us and our actions to get the message across. The most effect witness is the witness that a Christian’s own life speaks to those who observe him. To watch a Christian forgive another must be a strange, unusual and fascinating thing to someone who lacks faith and understanding. If someone asks us about it we can then tell them about God’s grace and his boundless love for sinners who are willing to repent. God understands more than anyone that we are human and we make mistakes. This is why God has given us grace to save us from damnation and we Christians must take the old saying to heart, “to err is human to forgive divine” because for us it is the absolute truth.

Another Pilgrim