Anyone you forgive, I also forgive
2 Corinthians 2:10a “Anyone you forgive, I also forgive.”
Think for a moment of how many times in your life you have prayed the Lord’s Prayer. That is likely not something you keep track of. If you are honest about it, there are likely many times you have said that familiar prayer and have not really thought about what you are praying. We all know how easy it is to give cursory treatment to something which is very familiar.
The reason I mention all of that is I want you to think about the words we pray in the 5th petition each time we pray the Lord’s Prayer: “forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us”.
One of the greatest blessings of being a Christian is being able to go to God and ask for forgiveness for whatever sins we have committed whether a seeming little white lie or an offense which seems unforgiveable and constantly haunts us. That blessing is a free gift to us with no strings attached because Jesus paid for each of those sins with his death on the cross.
One of the greatest privileges of being a Christian is being able to say to a person who has sinned against us or someone else “I forgive you” and have those words have the same weight as if Jesus himself spoke them.
One of the biggest challenges of being a Christian is being able to forgive someone else as willingly and easily as we ask God to forgive us. How often haven’t we been tempted to or given in to the temptation to hold a grudge against a person who has done something hurtful against us and not extend to them forgiveness when they ask us for it. You likely know how much it hurts when someone holds that grudge against us and won’t forgive us no matter how much we beg for forgiveness.
The next time you are considering holding that grudge and not forgiving someone, consider these words of Jesus from Matthew 6:15 “But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”. Those are sobering words. Jesus is point blank serious that if we think we are going to try to play the role of judge and arbitrarily determine whom we want to forgive and whom we don’t, then Jesus is going to withhold from us the same forgiveness which we desire.
There are many applications of this concept, but I would like to make one with this Sunday being the 15th anniversary of 9/11. Do you still hold in your heart a deep-seeded anger and hatred toward those who carried out the heinous acts of that horrible day? I cannot even imagine what a challenge it is for the families of those who lost the nearly 3000 people who perished on that day to forgive. This may seem like an extreme situation, but it demonstrates how God wants us to forgive in even the most difficult of circumstances.
Nowhere does God tell us that he wants us to forgive when we feel it is justified, or when it is convenient or easy or seems like the right thing to do. Unless someone out and out tells us that they refuse to repent of their sins, we owe them the same gracious forgiveness which God so lovingly gives to us day after day.
Gracious God, help to not only pray, but to also rightly practice “forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us”. We ask this as your forgiven children, in Jesus’ name. Amen.