Our forgiveness is from God, and our forgiveness is a pardon, We did not DO ANYTHING TO DESERVE IT and our records against God as offenders are wiped Clean.
Please hold onto this for the heart of this sermon series is FORGIVENESS, what it is to be Forgiven by our Master and how we should forgive others.
The Master's Forgiveness is not the fallen Human Forgiveness, in order to truly forgive we must first look at our Master and the Forgivess, He purchased through Humility and Self-Sacrifice.
Because as fallen human beings, forgiveness is a difficult concept. But the hardest thing about forgiveness is not the act of forgiving (for that act was done by God and it is something that we cannot even do) it is the dying to yourself and counting others higher than yourself, that is the most difficult.
Forgiveness takes humility and humility comes from not thinking higher of yourself than you are.
God gave forgiveness at the expense of His Son, for your benefit from nothing you have done.
If God, the ONLY one who does not need to forgive any trespass against Him, took it upon Himself to satisfy the requirements of sin, then you OUGHT to extend forgiveness as a Creature who has been forgiven by the Uncreated God at no expense of our your own.
The heavenly reality of extending forgiveness is tough, but it can be overcome, through and to God, for the Glory of God. We can live in the freedom of our Master's Forgiveness in which we can truly extend that forgiveness to others as those who we ourselves have been pardoned, not by our works, but by the blood of Christ. |
