Welcome to another day the Lord has made that we should rejoice and be glad in. (Psalms 118:24)

Today let’s examine the believer’s amnesia of forgiveness.

Today’s scripture, Colossians 3:12‭-‬13 (NLT) says…
Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.

Consider…
Jesus told the following parable on forgiveness. In Matthew 18:23‭-‬35 (NLT), He said…
“Therefore, the Kingdom of Heaven can be compared to a king who decided to bring his accounts up to date with servants who had borrowed money from him. In the process, one of his debtors was brought in who owed him millions of dollars. He couldn’t pay, so his master ordered that he be sold—along with his wife, his children, and everything he owned—to pay the debt. “But the man fell down before his master and begged him, ‘Please, be patient with me, and I will pay it all.’ Then his master was filled with pity for him, and he released him and forgave his debt. “But when the man left the king, he went to a fellow servant who owed him a few thousand dollars. He grabbed him by the throat and demanded instant payment. “His fellow servant fell down before him and begged for a little more time. ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it,’ he pleaded. But his creditor wouldn’t wait. He had the man arrested and put in prison until the debt could be paid in full. “When some of the other servants saw this, they were very upset. They went to the king and told him everything that had happened. Then the king called in the man he had forgiven and said, ‘You evil servant! I forgave you that tremendous debt because you pleaded with me. Shouldn’t you have mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you?’ Then the angry king sent the man to prison to be tortured until he had paid his entire debt. “That’s what my heavenly Father will do to you if you refuse to forgive your brothers and sisters from your heart.”

I shared the parable in it’s entirety, because it underscores today’s scripture.

The message is clear, remember how you were forgiven by God, when the opportunity comes to forgive someone else.

I think one of the major reasons believers struggle to forgive is because they too easily forget being forgiven.

Have you ever paid attention to the fact that we actually serve a ‘pay it forward’ God. For example, tucked away in Leviticus 19:33‭-‬34 (NLT), God told the Israelites…
“Do not take advantage of foreigners who live among you in your land. Treat them like native-born Israelites, and love them as you love yourself. Remember that you were once foreigners living in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.

Funny, that sounds like the second greatest commandment. Remember Jesus said…
And the second command is like the first: ‘Love your neighbor the same as you love yourself.’ – Matthew 22:39 ERV

Notice Jesus said the command was like the first, which was to love God comprehensively.

In fact, the Apostle John challenges our love for God, if we aren’t loving those we’re around. 1 John 4:20 (ERV) admonishes…
If we say we love God but hate any of our brothers or sisters in his family, we are liars. If we don’t love someone we have seen, how can we love God? We have never even seen him.

And the Apostle Paul reiterates what Jesus said in Matthew 22:40, when he wrote…
For the whole law can be summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” – Galatians 5:14 NLT

As I am writing this, I am more clearly seeing, that perhaps our struggle to forgive is also rooted in our forgetting to remember God’s love and grace extended to us.

Somehow we’ve managed to separate forgiveness from love. We have made forgiveness a transaction rather than an act of love, like God did for us.

Look closely at Ephesians 2:3‭-‬5 (NLT)…
All of us used to live that way, following the passionate desires and inclinations of our sinful nature. By our very nature we were subject to God’s anger, just like everyone else. But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much, that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s grace that you have been saved!)

Maybe we’re so poor at forgiveness because we forget to remember the richness of God’s mercy, and depth of His love.

Or pay attention to the wording of the conjunction transition in Romans 3:23‭-‬24 (NLT)…
For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. Yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins.

Do you see it? Everyone sin, YET God in His grace. Perhaps, we struggle to forgive, because we forget to operate in the grace God operated in with us.

Make no mistake, our salvation is God in His grace forgiving our sins against Him.

The Holy Spirit also showed me that we’ve done, and do wrong, but God GAVE Jesus Christ to make us right. In case you forgot, gave is the past tense of give. Perhaps we struggle to forgive because we forget For God so loved the world that He GAVE. (John 3:16-17). In case you also forgot, the world means everyone.

In addition, it could be that we struggle to forgive because we’re so fixated on our rightness, that we forget to remember Who makes us righteous. (Romans 5:18)

When we don’t remember all that God did to forgive us, we forget to forgive others as He forgave us.

Lastly, the Holy Spirit is directing me to share Paul’s admonishment in Ephesians 4:31‭-‬32 (NLT)…
Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, and slander, as well as all types of evil behavior. Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.

The Holy Spirit is saying…

• The next time you feel mistreated, remember the mistreatment that Jesus endured for you.
• Or when someone is unfairly cross with you, pause and remember the cross that Jesus was unjustly crucified on for you.
• And when you’re tempted to take issue with forgiving someone for something that’s not your fault, remember Jesus was faultless when He died for your faults. And His first words were Father Forgive them.

Today, take a moment to reflect on just how much God has forgiven you, store it in your memory bank, and withdraw it whenever you see someone else in need of that same forgiveness. By the way, God replenishes the forgiveness you give away 🙏🏾🙏🏾🙏🏾 (Matthew 6:14-15)

Remember what Jesus did, and forgive!

Today’s song is…
Forgiveness

Blessings 4HG (1 Corinthians 10:31)