Colossians 3:13

Colossians 3:13

Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you

 

When we pray, we ask the Lord to forgive the sins that we have committed. We plead for his understanding, mercy, and grace for the times that we have gone against his commands and stood in opposition to his plans. And when we close our prayer, we are confident that though Christ, we have the forgiveness that we seek. We are confident that when God looks at us at our times of repentance, he doesn’t see a pathetic, unworthy sinner, but rather sees Christ in us…he sees the punishment that has already been paid, and he forgives. We are clean, the sin is washed away, and we are no longer destined for condemnation. It’s the perfect example of true love, compassion and mercy. But do we exhibit the same level of compassion and understanding with others in our lives? Do we even get close to displaying the same love and mercy? More times than not, we are miles away from showing the same forgiveness to others when they sin against us. More time than not, we hold onto their mistake, we hang it over their heads, and we make sure that they understand that they have wronged us. Perhaps we justify this lack of pardon because we are aggravated, hurt, or angry…after all, a worldly view would completely back us in this behavior. A worldly view would say that we are justified to hold that person hostage in their sin and even seek some way of evening the playing field. But we are not meant to act according to the ways of this world. We are not meant to use the worlds sinful hand as our guide and direction in life. We are to seek the Lord in all we do…we are to seek the Lord’s counsel in how we interact with others, especially when someone sins against us. And the Lord says forgive…at all times, forgive. For we are all miserable sinners…we have all made countless mistakes in the past…and we will undoubtedly make countless mistakes in the days to come…yet in our repentance, the Lord ALWAYS forgives. May we seek to forgive as God forgives…may we allow the Holy Spirit to guide our hearts in completely forgiving those that sin against us…and may we give thanks and praise to the Lord for his unending mercy and grace.