Forgiving Others

For if you forgive people their trespasses [their reckless and willful sins, leaving them, letting them go, and giving up resentment], your heavenly Father will also forgive you. Matthew 6:14

The ultimate expression of love is forgiving another person, even when they do not deserve it. We call this Grace and the best example of Grace, or forgiveness, can be seen by Jesus on the Cross. The people that Jesus forgave lied about Him, were jealous of Him, mocked Him, tortured Him, and they were killing Him in a terrible way by hanging Him on a Cross. They did not ask for His forgiveness, they did not want it, and they did not believe that He had any power to give it, yet Jesus gave it to them all freely. This is true love and we now have His love poured out in our hearts, Romans 5:5. We now have His love permanently dwelling within us,  John 17:26, and we have God personally insuring that we know it, 1 Thessalonians 4:9.

All that being said, our peace with this Truth is that we can’t help but to be forgiven because the love of our Father now abounds in our hearts. So many try to tell us that we have to constantly seek our own forgiveness from our Father. That is just not how He works. Our Father insures that we are forgiven by pouring His love out in us to forgive others. God’s love working through us to forgive others covers our multitude of sins. Our Father would never leave our forgiveness up to us alone, He loves us too much to chance it. So to insure that we are forgiven He makes His love abound through us towards others and we don’t have to worry or fret over it. We can’t help but to forgive others, our Father won’t let us do anything but forgive.