Many years ago I had a discussion with my best friend (now he is also a pastor and we were trained together in the seminary), and we talked about forgiveness and he helped me understand how God decides to forget my sins.
I told him that it was impossible for us to just forget the offenses of others and not remember them anymore, but through several verses he showed me how God decides to forget our rebellions and not remember them anymore. Isaiah 43:25 says "I, I am the one who blots out your transgressions for My own sake, and I will not remember your sins" and in the book of Hebrews 8:12 makes a reference to the book of Jeremiah who tells us "FOR I WILL HAVE MERCY OF THEIR INIQUITIES, AND I WILL REMEMBER THEIR SINS NEVER AGAIN."
The impressive thing is that in both quotes it is God who decides to forgive us and actively decides not to remember our sins anymore. How wonderful is the God that we adore and that we serve because by His grace we can find the forgiveness that we need and we are sure that if we have a relationship with the Father He does not have pending accounts or lists of what we have already confessed and that we think is is piling up against us.
How should this truth help me to forgive others?
Although for us to think about forgetting something can become impossible, I have to make the decision to forgive and seek that the offense I have received does not bring pain to my mind and my heart. In Ephesians 4:32 and Colossians 3:13 the word of God commands me to forgive others in the way that the father forgave us in Christ Jesus; Although it can mean much more than what we are talking about, I want to focus on the fact that our forgiveness must be according to what we learned from God by forgetting our sins and not bringing them to mind anymore.
When we forgive others we should not keep our own account of the times we forgive them, since God teaches me in His Word that forgiveness must be available to everyone and that I as his son I must grant it. Many times we have thought that the other person does not deserve our forgiveness because he does not understand what he has done and if I simply forgive him he could come to think that everything is fine, but I need to understand that my job is to forgive as God has forgiven me and God will take care of teaching that person through the Word that they need to repent of such an offense, and I think that is trusting in Christ and in His sovereignty.
What is my duty now?
I need to know that I have truly been forgiven by the Lord, it is what His Word shows me and I must believe that in reality. He has decided to forget my rebellions to give me freedom from my sins. This example should help me understand that if there is something that I have kept in my heart against someone, I need to see God's model and above all obey the command to forgive in the same way that God has forgiven me and as an example there is Peter who asked Christ about how many times we should forgive our brother who sins against us and Jesus' answer helps us not to focus on the amount but on the time that our forgiveness should last: forever.
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