We saw in an earlier article that forgiveness is not only an important option for the follower of Jesus, but an imperative.
Assuming that the person reading this article is seeking truth, a dedicated follower of Christ, or someone who would really like to know more about the Christian lifestyle, we should first agree that living as a Christian requires an uncompromising stance.
Faith in God and the subsequent walk is called discipleship–living a life of prescribed discipline with a teachable attitude. Faith, by definition requires complete trust and accompanying application.
We can’t expect to be truly successful as believers if we are double minded about anything. James tells us that the person caught between two opinions or decisions can expect to receive nothing (James 1:6-8). It is simply not faith, which requires direction and application (James 2:17).
The faith walk is a constant learning curve–we don’t know everything there is to know–but we have to be of a mind that we are willing and able to make the right choices to sustain the life we are offered by God, even if it means making changes that are initially difficult.
Forgiveness can be one of these obstacles. But it doesn’t have to be a mountainous wall of rock to our progress in life. We can speak to it in faith and see it fall away before us as we trust God to lead us through the process (Mark 11:23).
Vitally important
Jesus told us we need to be forgiving if we are to be forgiven.
“For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses,neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”
Matthew 6:14-15
We can say that forgiveness, then, is a requirement for discipleship.
We do not have the luxury of flitting in and out of forgiveness. It is definitely a choice, but one that is encouraged in the Word.
Jesus said much about forgiveness, including a number of parables illustrating not only the pitfalls of ignoring it, and how it should be applied, but also its importance to His followers (i.e., Mat.18:22-35).
Forgiveness is from God
The great news is that the forgiveness we need in life originates from God the Father. He is the Creator and Enabler of forgiveness (Mark 2:10, Luke 11:4), just as He is the One who first loved us before we discovered and received the love that can now come from Him through us (1 John 4:19, Rom.5:5)).
This adds responsibility, though, because, being forgiven by the God the Forgiver, we are now in a position to forgive others (Eph.4:2). We no longer have the option of holding them to their transgressions against us.
We may find this a hard thing to do, but when we remember how much God has forgiven us we can determine that we are empowered by Him to grant the same forgiveness level to those who have offended us in any way.
We should also remember that discipleship is a disciplined life, whereby we follow all of Jesus’ instructions, and engage and develop in all of God’s Word to us as New Testament saints and children of the Almighty.
