Transformed: A 9-Day Plan on Jesus’ Sermon on the PlainSample

THE IMMENSITY OF FORGIVENESS

“Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you.” LUKE 6:37-38 (ESV)

Nothing will corrupt our hearts and our thinking faster than an unforgiving heart. But the reverse is also true: nothing grants freedom, joy, and peace of heart and mind more quickly than the genuine experience of offering forgiveness. Indeed, our readiness to forgive is a litmus test of our spiritual status; when we forgive from the heart, we provide evidence that we actually are sons and daughters of the Most High (Luke 6:35).

Jesus often places our being forgiven and our willingness to forgive next to each other (see Luke 11:4). So when we think about practicing forgiveness, we first have to ask where we can find it. The answer is that the source of all true forgiveness is found in God alone. Indeed, out of the abundance of God’s mercy comes forgiveness.

That forgiveness is as indispensable to the life and health of our souls as food is to our physical bodies. Scripture is filled with reminders that point to God as one who forgives. The psalmist says, “If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness” (Psalm 130:3-4). Similarly, the prophet Daniel says, “To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness” (Daniel 9:9). The divine Son of God, as He was spat upon and mocked, stripped of His clothes, beaten, nailed to a cross between two criminals, and abandoned in agony declared, “Father, forgive them” (Luke 23:34). God’s spirit of forgiveness knows no rival.

As God’s children by faith in Christ, we are to imitate our Father and our Lord by practicing forgiveness. It is so integral to the life of the true Christian that Jesus goes as far as to say that if we are not willing to forgive, then we should ask ourselves very seriously whether we are truly forgiven: that is, whether we have really grasped the gospel in our hearts (see Matthew 6:14-15). If you are harboring unforgiveness in your heart, do not excuse or belittle it. Instead, bring the gospel to it. Reflect on the immensity of what you have been forgiven through Christ. Reflect on the forgiving nature of your Father, whom you are called to reflect in your life. Recognize the corrupting, life-draining burden of unforgiveness. Specify what you need to do, and for whom. That is the path to enjoying the peace and freedom of forgiving just as you have been forgiven.

• How is God calling me to think differently?
• How is God reordering my heart’s affections—what I love?
• What is God calling me to do as I go about my day today?