THE YARDSTICK FOR FORGIVENESS

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

"Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing."

Matthew 23:34

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

Today is Good Friday and on this somber occasion, I want to touch on an important aspect of the cross, one I believe that gets lost sometimes in all our thinking about Jesus and His suffering as He paid the penalty for our sins.

You see, we need only look to the cross of Calvary, and the outstretched arms of Jesus nailed to it, to find a yardstick with which to measure the forgiveness we are to extend to others.

With this, a quick question:

Who do you know in your life that needs your forgiveness?

I think we all probably have someone, perhaps a family member or a friend or a co-worker. Maybe it’s even a stranger who has done harm to us or someone we know.

The truth of the matter is that everyone at some time or another in life will have to face the matter of forgiving someone else...and it’s not always easy, so much so that we might refuse to forgive and continue harboring ill will against the one who has wronged us or someone we love. And it’s in the midst of refusing to pardon the wrongs someone has done to us or someone we know that we lose sight of one very important truth:

We all have wronged the Lord, and we’ve done it over and over and over again and yet, He has forgiven us out of His deep mercy and grace and love.

If we're really honest with ourselves, we would realize that the Lord blesses us all the time, even when we’re unworthy of it. And yet we too often refuse to show our gratitude by forgiving others as He forgives us and, by doing so, we disobey and disregard His call to live as He did. In sum, believers unfortunately respond to the Lord’s call for righteousness with wickedness and frankly, it’s amazing that all of us haven’t just been wiped off the face of the earth. It would be something we fully deserve.

But that’s not what happens, does it?

The Lord doesn’t strike us down when we wrong Him. Instead, He grants us His forgiveness and grace and love. And I don’t know about you but I would have trouble counting the number of times He has pardoned me and accepted my cries for mercy born from prayers of repentance.

So if the Lord can be so gracious and compassionate and merciful, then what’s our problem? Why aren’t we willing to release a grudge we are holding against another and instead show the same clemency that He has shown us?

After all, Jesus commanded us to do so, right? We know through these words as He answered a question from his disciple Peter on the matter of forgiving:

Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?"

Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times."

“Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants."

"As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt."

"The servant fell on his knees before him. 'Be patient with me,' he begged, 'and I will pay back everything.' The servant's master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go."

"But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him and began to choke him. 'Pay back what you owe me!' he demanded."

"His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, 'Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.'"

"But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened."

"Then the master called the servant in. 'You wicked servant,' he said, 'I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?' In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed."

"This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart."

Matthew 18:21-35

Indeed, we are to forgive as the Master forgives unless we want to invite our God to begin holding our sin debt against us and only a fool would invite that on themselves.

Need one more example of forgiveness from our Savior?

Look to Calvary and the cross where we find the greatest display of pardon ever administered as Jesus, the Savior of the world, was dying from crucifixion when He spoke these words:

"Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." Matthew 23:34

Jesus was in the presence of mocking and ridicule from the Roman soldiers and the crowds who gathered to watch Him die and yet He, the perfect Lamb of God, chose to not condemn but rather ask for the pardon of His assailants from His Heavenly Father. All this while nailed to the cross and in the midst of more suffering than any of us will ever know while His life dwindled away.

Jesus could have called down legions of angels to utterly those who sinned against Him but He didn’t, choosing to not harbor a grudge against those who wronged Him but instead showed them mercy because they didn’t truly know who He was. If they had, He would have never been crucified in the first place.

Friends, the Lord is speaking loudly to us through His Word on this holy Good Friday. For if Jesus could forgive in the midst of His circumstances, then so can we in any situations we have faced, are facing, or are yet to face. My prayer today is that you will commit yourself to forgive as Jesus did from the cross and let go of any ill will you have carried against another, an ill will that does nothing but poison you from the inside out, an ill will that pulls you away from showing the mercy of Jesus to others by carrying a resentment that you have no right to carry.

In the end translation, God’s word is clear.

We are to forgive as Jesus forgave us and the time is now to do just that.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.