As I get older I realize more that the act of forgiveness is lost on our world.
I’ve experienced this truth in my own life and heart, as well as in others. I’ve watched it through the screen of the television and read it in the never ending vacuum of words on the internet. To pretend that forgiveness doesn’t effect every human being on the earth is a foolish act. We are all in need of being forgiven and of showing it to others.
Forgiveness is VITAL to us all, and that’s why I feel moved to talk about it. So for the foreseeable future I’m going to dedicate Friday articles on my blog to FORGIVENESS. There’s so many different ways to look at this topic and realities to consider, that I have no idea how much will be said and for how long. So we’ll just call this an “ongoing series”, that I hope might help inject FORGIVENESS back into our hearts and thoughts, and bring about positive change and restoration in our lives.
So I want to start this series by going back to what I said a few lines back…to pretend that forgiveness doesn’t effect every human being on the earth is a foolish act. We are all in need of being forgiven and of showing it to others. You see, we were all born with a problem (at least spiritually speaking), and that’s sin. Its sin that separates us from God and it’s also what can separate us from each other. Through our own harmful actions or another’s harmful actions against us, our sin creates separation that can only be brought back together through forgiveness.
So what we first need to realize in approaching forgiveness in our lives (no matter the situation), is that there is not one person who is perfect and has never done wrong. We are all guilty of something. Ecclesiastes 7:20 (VOICE) says, “There is not a righteous person on earth who always does good and never sins.” By taking in and accepting that we all fall short, we open ourselves up to the process of being forgiven and showing forgiveness to others.
When I look at my own life, I see how each and every time I’ve messed up, God has been there to offer forgiveness. The same is true of family and friends I have hurt; I’ve been blessed that most (if not all) has shown me forgiveness in some way. Showing forgiveness to others is a far easier process, when we take a look at ourselves and all the ways we’ve been shown grace.
So maybe the first step for you and me, as we travel this forgiveness journey, is to realize and accept that we’re all the same when it comes to sin and the forgiveness of it. But that’s what makes Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection so beautiful…He didn’t do all that for a chosen few. He did it for us…EVERYONE…and by doing so He showed us how important FORGIVENESS is in our life.
If none of us are innocent…then we all have the choice and ability to forgive and be forgiven.
“Basically, all of us, whether insiders or outsiders, start out in identical conditions, which is to say that we all start out as sinners…This makes it clear, doesn’t it, that whatever is written in these Scriptures is not what God says about others but to us to whom these Scriptures were addressed in the first place! And it’s clear enough, isn’t it, that we’re sinners, every one of us, in the same sinking boat with everybody else? Our involvement with God’s revelation doesn’t put us right with God. What it does is force us to face our complicity in everyone else’s sin."
– Romans 3:10-20 (MSG)
