Studying God’s Word ping
The Lord recently showed me some things to think about regarding forgiving others.
First, in a way, since His will is sovereign, to hold something against other people is to also hold something against Him. You can often see that in people’s bitter remarks about others. It’s a sobering thought.
Also, when thinking of forgiveness, think of what God’s Word says about mercy and truth:
“All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth, to such as keep His covenant and His testimonies.” Psalm 25:10.
“But You, O Lord, are a God full of compassion, and gracious, longsuffering and abundant in mercy and truth.” Psalm 86:15.
“Righteousness and justice are the foundation of Your throne; mercy and truth go before Your face.” Psalm 89:14.
“Let not mercy and truth forsake you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart, and so find favor and high esteem in the sight of God and man.” Proverbs 3:3-4.
“Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.” Psalm 85:10
Forgiveness involves both mercy and truth. Truth is a help to us.
Then, we can consider some different parables Jesus taught.
Of course, the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant in Matthew 18:21-35. We all owe so much more to the Lord.
Our real problem in this life is with our sin and rebellion against the Lord. And even when we’ve been forgiven after repenting, believing on Christ’s sacrifice to pay our sin debt and then living to please God, we cannot start to accrue any “pay” from God, as if to put Him in debt to us, for our “good works.” As Paul wrote, then we’d be earning our salvation and it would be due to us from God like a pay check. Like with the crimes of worldly criminals, our sins are crimes against God that are like scattering seeds for the devil. We can never recapture them and undue what evil our sins have done in this world. We can never “pay our debt” to Him and undue the wrong things we’ve done. We can only repent and live to please Him by following Him to the best of our ability.
The Lord also pointed me, too, to the Parable of the Prodigal Son. At best, like the prodigal son, we decide to turn to God because we see it’s in our self-interest. He reveals that to us. Many people who deny God don’t see that. But because being reconciled to God is actually quite selfish and self-serving on our part, we should be ready to be merciful to others and realistically deal with their selfishness, as it is ours too.
Then the Lord also brought to my mind the Parable of the Unjust Steward. As Jesus often preached on money and mammon, and connected them to our sin and need for forgiveness, we can also take from this parable that we can forgive a certain amount of what is owed to God, the Master, and ourselves in a human sense. Think of the Lord dispensing mercy, and also how a human court can dispense mercy. Part of forgiveness can mean not going after what is fully due one, as God doesn’t.
Also, “love covers a multitude of sins.” And “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Philippians 4:13. We are able to, with the Lord sustaining us, work through these most difficult human situations, doing His will and serving Him, and trying to help others to be reconciled to Him.