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FORGIVENESS

1 John 2:2 “He himself is the sacrifice that atones for our sins—and not only our sins but the sins of all the world.”
On a Roman cross over 200 years ago, Jesus Christ bore the sin of the whole human race, once for all time. Sin was nailed to the cross in Jesus’ body. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
That means that He bore all my sin, all my innumerable sins, all my brokenness, all my rebellion, all my indifference, every evil and putrid thought or act, all my idolatry, all my unfaithfulness, everything that could be defined by Him as sin. Not only that, He bore my sorrows, all my weakness, all my grief, all my unbelief, all my failures, He bore all the evil and abuse that would ever done to me, all malignant acts against me that try to destroy me, all slander, all lies spoken against me, all the pain due to betrayal and abandonment, all my sadness over every loss, all fear from the past, in the present or of the future, all anger and wrongdoing heaped on me.
More than I will ever know - Jesus bore on the cross and paid for in full – my sin, not in part but the whole, was nailed to the cross and I bear it no more.
Given that eternal truth, how can I not forgive in others what Jesus has already forgiven (“Father forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.”) EVEN if those who have sinned against me refuse to receive that forgiveness offered to them by Jesus Christ. Will my choosing to forgive be motivated by the heart of the Lord Jesus or the experience and memory of the pain another caused me? Will I forgive as I have been forgiven knowing Jesus has paid it all?
Yes, I will by the grace and power of the Holy Spirit in Jesus’ Name. I will forgive as Stephen forgave even as the stones being thrown were killing him. I will speak forgiveness and blessing that even my adversaries might be turned from Sauls into Pauls.



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