Christmas: A Time for Forgiveness - iBelieve Truth - December 25, 2023

“Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you” Ephesians 4:32

When it comes to forgiveness, do you give up? Are you willing to give up what you believe is your right to be unforgiving? 

Colossians 3:13 urges us, “Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.”

In accepting God’s forgiveness of sin through Jesus Christ’s death on the cross, most receivers of this free gift don’t realize that by accepting it, we are surrendering our right to being unforgiving towards others.

Jesus Explained How God’s Forgiveness Works

Jesus clearly explains how God’s forgiveness works in Matthew 6:14, “For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.”
But many individuals, who consider themselves followers of Jesus Christ, skip right over this verse, believing God can forgive us of our sins, even though none of us deserve it or have earned it, but when it comes to forgiving others, it’s up to our discretion and usually conditional. 

We often think forgiveness is based on our own reasoning, on what we decide, considering if we believe they deserve forgiveness or if what they did is unforgivable in our eyes.

But it’s not conditional. Nowhere in Scripture does God give us permission to choose not to forgive someone. It’s a hard pill for many to swallow, too, and for some, it’s unthinkable for God to even ask them to forgive. 

Still, Matthew 6:15, spells it out clearly, “But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”

Who Deserves Forgiveness?

The truth is that none of us deserve God’s forgiveness. It’s a reality many reject, unwilling to accept that they aren’t somewhat deserving of it on their own merit.

Sometimes we can think we’re not so bad, so God didn’t really have to forgive us for much. But, we’re being misled in our thinking when we consider ourselves deserving, at all, of His forgiveness. 

When we believe this way, it causes us to justify ourselves rather than being justified by God, meaning we see it as reasonable for God to forgive us because of our own moral goodness. But Romans 4:25 describes how we receive God’s forgiveness. “He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.”

Without God’s forgiveness, we are a cursed people, born in sin, with an absolute inability to resist sinning or free ourselves from sin’s curse. The Apostle Paul spells it out for us in Romans 5:6, “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.”

How We Are Made Righteous with God

The only way we can be freed from this curse and made right with God is through accepting Jesus’ death as payment for our sins. “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of glory of God” (Romans 5:1-2).

Paul sums it up in Romans 5:18, explaining how sin entered the world through Adam’s disobedience and was washed away through Christ’s death on the cross. “Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people.”

Let’s Pray:

Dear Father, 

Thank You for forgiving our sins through Jesus’ death on the cross, for giving Him to us when we were still held powerless by sin’s curse. Our hearts are deeply grateful for Your forgiveness, for making us righteous in Your sight, and for freeing us from the power of sin. Help us to freely forgive others, remembering how You forgave us.

In Jesus’ name, 

Amen

Photo Credit: ©Andreas Kretschmer/Unsplash

Lynette Kittle is married with four daughters. She enjoys writing about faith, marriage, parenting, relationships, and life. Her writing has been published by Focus on the Family, Decision, Today’s Christian Woman, kirkcameron.com, Ungrind.org, StartMarriageRight.com, and more. She has a M.A. in Communication from Regent University and serves as associate producer for Soul Check TV.