LAST JOHN BLOG UNTIL MONDAY
28th FEBRUARY 2017
Asking for forgiveness and giving forgiveness is too often neglected – I
know I neglect it anyway (I’m sure you’re doing better than me but I write
these blogs mainly for me anyway!)
To meditate/pray upon
John 18:27 ‘Again Peter denied it, and at that moment a rooster
began to crow.’
1 Jn.1:8-10 ‘If we claim to be without sin,
we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our
sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from
all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him
out to be a liar and his word is not in us.’
Matthew 6:12 “And forgive us our debts, as we also have
forgiven our debtors.”
Psalm 32:5 ‘Then I acknowledged my sin to
you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, “I will confess my transgressions
to the Lord.” And you forgave the guilt of my sin.’
Psalm 103:12 ‘as far as the east is from the
west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.’
Dealing with
regret for our failures
In order to deal with regret for our sin we must:
·
Recognise our mistakes (even if others have
sinned and contributed to it)
·
Confess our sin to God, express our decision
to repent (turn from it)
·
Receive God’s forgiveness, give thanks for it
·
Confess our sin to people who have been
affected by us (if wise to do so)
·
Move on. Learn from mistakes but refuse to
entertain regret or guilt – it’s gone!
Dealing with
the regret of what others do to us
In dealing with regret, it’s also important to think about those whom we
need to forgive – those who ‘sin against us’. We can regret things that are
done to us as much as the things that we do.
Forgiveness is vital in dealing with our failures and the failure of
others toward us. To forgive is to not treat people as their sins deserve –
it’s a living out of the gospel as we, like Christ, bear the pain of what has
been done to us whilst refusing to take vengeance in thought of action.
(refusing to take vengeance is not the same as refusing to get authorities
involved if crime has been committed – please take advice on this)
Bitterness binds us to the past and allows the person and their sin
toward us to continue to hurt us. Forgiveness releases us from the past as we
give people into the hands of our perfect God who is also the perfect judge! As
Lewis Smedes, wrote, ‘To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that
the prisoner was you’.
Forgiveness- It is a life-long commitment
‘This means that you keep on
doing it - as long as you live. It won’t do to forgive today and then return to
folly tomorrow. I know of a person whose wife said, ‘I thought you forgave
me.’ He replied, ‘that was yesterday’. Total forgiveness is a life-long
commitment; you may need to do it every single day of your life until you die.
No one said it would be easy.’ (R. T. Kendall, Total forgiveness)
We can forgive because, like
Peter, we have failed God but He has forgiven us. Gospel people like amazed
that the Holy God should accept us in Christ and so understand and make the
effort required to forgive others. As someone wrote, “To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has
forgiven the inexcusable in you.”
Make giving and receiving
forgiveness a daily habit
Asking for forgiveness and giving forgiveness is too often neglected – I
know I neglect it anyway (I’m sure you’re doing better than me but I write
these blogs mainly for me anyway!) When teaching His disciples to pray He
included,
Matthew 6:12 “And forgive us our debts, as we also have
forgiven our debtors.”
Clearly we are taught to do this
regularly, and don’t we need to!
THIS IS THE LAST JOHN BLOG
UNTIL MONDAY 28TH FEBRUARY 2017
You can catch up on all the messages in the
John series at:
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