Daily Devotional

-May 11, 2021-

Good morning, happy Tuesday,

-Forgiving Others As God Has Forgiven Us-

“And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.”

(Ephesians 4:32).

Forgiveness is a blessed gift from God. Through Jesus Christ our Savior and His death on the cross in our place, we are forgiven of our sins. He bore our sins, became sin for us, and nailed our sins to the cross. He delivered us from the penalty of our sins, day by day is delivering us from the power of sin, and one day will deliver us from the presence of sin. His one sacrifice paid our sin debt forever. All our sins, past, present, and future are forgiven.

David wrote in Psalm 32:1, “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.” There is such peace and assurance knowing that God through Jesus has forgiven us. In the OT, the sins of the people were covered. The animal sacrifices had to be repeated yearly as a nation, and more often for individuals who had sinned. Someone once said, “He paid a debt He did not owe because we owed a debt we could not pay.”

Since we have been forgiven of such a great sin debt, we should forgive others who have wronged us and sinned against us. God forgave us immediately and completely with kindness and tenderheartedness. He forgave us and forgot, which we must do toward others as well. The key to our verse today is in the phrase, “even as God in Christ forgave you.”

Jesus illustrated forgiveness in telling a parable of two servants. The first owed ten thousand talents, which he could pay. His master had compassion on him and forgave him of the huge debt. That servant was owed by a fellow servant the price of a hundred denarii, which he refused to forgive. He had him thrown into prison as a result. His fellow servants reported this to their master who then rebuked the servant for not being willing to forgive this small debt. He delivered him to the torturers until he could pay his debt. This parable shows that we have been forgiven so much by God and should forgive others also. Jesus said in Matthew 18:35, “So My Heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses.”

When someone wrongs us and asks for forgiveness, we should forgive them. Alexander Pope in 1711 once said, “To err is human, to forgive is divine.” We are most like God when we forgive others as He has forgiven us.

May the Lord help us to forgive as we have been forgiven. Good relations can only be maintained with others through forgiveness. There is such joy and peace in forgiveness.

Have a blessed day forgiving others. Stay safe and healthy.

Dean