“Therefore if you bring your gift to the
altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, “leave your gift there before the altar, and
go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your
gift.” Matthew 5:23-24 NKJV
As
strange as it may sound, the one thing I look forward to the most is something
I have a hard time imagining. That
statement probably doesn’t make a lot of sense now does it? Well, let me try to explain. What I look forward to the most is life
without sin, or a sin nature. That would
be a perfect description of our future life in Heaven, yet because I have never
known a life without sin or my sin nature, I have absolutely no idea just what
that would be like. What I do know, however,
is what I have observed in this life about how sin can have a detrimental
effect on our relationship with God and with others.
If
you took the time to study all that Jesus taught on His time on earth, and
categorized the subject matter, you would find that the subject of forgiveness
was one of, if not the most discussed subject He shared with us. I’m sure also, that most of us have learned
somewhere along the line is that anything given that much attention must be
considered rather important. It is my
thought that the subject of forgiveness is one of the most basic, fundamental
building blocks of our lives as believers.
That being the case, it then becomes one of the most important ones for
us to not only understand, but practice as God has revealed to us.
“For if
you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. “But if you do not forgive men their
trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” Matthew 6:14-15 NKJV
I
believe these two passages from the book of Matthew tell us just how important
the spirit of forgiveness is to our Father, and why it should be to us as
well. As believers, we have made the
choice to ask God to forgive us of our sins, and He did as He promised He
would, thus establishing our relationship with him for all of eternity. Yet although that relationship as God’s
children is unbreakable, these passages also tell us that our relationship with
Him can be severely affected by our unwillingness to forgive others as He has
forgiven us.
The
passage from Matthew 6 says unless we forgive those who’ve sinned against us,
God will not forgive our sins. This doesn’t apply to our salvation but to
maintaining our fellowship with God after we’re saved. As born again believers,
the failure to forgive will not endanger our eternal salvation but it will
cause us to be estranged from God during our lives here. If we look at it this way, can any of us
really believe that being angry at someone else and choosing not to forgive is
worth the price we will pay? I would
have to say that from what I read, it appears that forgiveness is a command
from God, not a suggestion.
Although
hard for most of us to understand, especially given our sin nature, in God’s
eyes it’s rather simple. When someone
does something that hurts us, we suffer.
But if we choose not to forgive them, we too then sin and according to
God, will suffer even more. If we obey
God and choose to forgive, then He will remove the anger from within us, give
us peace, and restore our relationship with Him to good standing. I think what many of us fail to realize is
that by choosing to be angry, and not forgiving someone who has wronged us, we
end up being the one who suffers the most.
“Be angry, and do not sin”: do not let the sun
go down on your wrath,
nor give
place to the devil.” Ephesians
4:26-27 NKJV
Making
the choice to be angry, and not forgive, simply invites Satan to come in and
work on us to try and justify our wrong attitude causing a downward spiral that
becomes harder and harder to escape.
Paul’s advice to us is to deal with our anger immediately by following
God’s command to forgive, and not let Satan get a foothold in our life. James also tells us how and why it is
important to do as God instructs us.
“Therefore
submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to
you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you
double-minded.” James 4:7-8 NKJV
When
we made the decision to accept the sacrifice Jesus made for our sins, we were
forgiven. Failure to forgive others will
not endanger that salvation, but it will definitely negatively affect our
relationship with God and deprive us of blessings in this life as well as the
loss of rewards in the next one. Our sin
nature creates in us the desire to punish someone when they do something which
offends us. We naturally want to be
angry, and find it easy to justify our feelings of payback and punishment as being
well deserved. Yet punishment is under
God’s purview, not ours. We are
commanded to forgive others just as we have been forgiven.
God
made the choice to forgive us before we even asked. Can we not do the same for others as
well?
"Then
Peter came to Him and said, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me,
and I forgive him? Up to seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven
times, but up to seventy times seven."
Matthew 18:21-22 NKJV
Has
the sun gone down on your anger? Is
there someone in your life you have chosen not to forgive? The truth is, you have chosen to sin by
ignoring God’s command and it is affecting your life in ways you may not even
realize. Give your anger over to God,
and forgive those who have offended you.
Allow God to deal with the problem and restore your relationship with
the Father to its rightful standing and begin again to enjoy the life He has
planned for you.
Keep
watching.
