The Ever-Present Need to Forgive Others

 July 3, 2024

Wednesday

We all have a sense of justice. Our God created us in His image. He is a just God. We have this justice inside us even if it has been corrupted by sin. On the other hand, we have avoided justice for our own sins by the sacrifice of Jesus. Make no mistake: justice was served. It just wasn't us who paid the price. It seems we should be grateful for our own forgiveness and welcome forgiving others and being forgiven by others. Yet, often, even Christians fail to do so.

Let's take the example of Jonah. Jonah didn't want to preach to Ninevah because he knew that God would forgive them if they repented. He fled so that they would not receive the word of the Lord and be destroyed. He had a special prejudice against them that would only make sense to someone who has this prejudice.

Prejudice is found in a superior attitude over others. It may be that they have hurt us and holding onto that hurt and refusing to forgive gives us a belief that we are superior to them. We might find them different and, therefore, despicable in our own eyes. We see ourselves as better and don't want them to receive anything good. 

But how can Christians have this attitude? We seem to justify the anger and unforgiveness just as the rest of the world does. God showed Jonah why he had no right to be angry in God's actions to forgive.

Jonah 4:1–11 (NASB 2020) ¹ But it greatly displeased Jonah, and he became angry. ² Then he prayed to the Lord and said, “Please Lord, was this not what I said when I was still in my own country? Therefore in anticipation of this I fled to Tarshish, since I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in mercy, and One who relents of disaster. ³ So now, Lord, please take my life from me, for death is better to me than life.” ⁴ But the Lord said, “Do you have a good reason to be angry?” ⁵ Then Jonah left the city and sat down east of it. There he made a shelter for himself and sat under it in the shade, until he could see what would happen in the city. ⁶ So the Lord God designated a plant, and it grew up over Jonah to be a shade over his head, to relieve him of his discomfort. And Jonah was overjoyed about the plant. ⁷ But God designated a worm when dawn came the next day, and it attacked the plant and it withered. ⁸ And when the sun came up God designated a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on Jonah’s head so that he became faint, and he begged with all his soul to die, saying, “Death is better to me than life!” ⁹ But God said to Jonah, “Do you have a good reason to be angry about the plant?” And he said, “I have good reason to be angry, even to the point of death!” ¹⁰ Then the Lord said, “You had compassion on the plant, for which you did not work and which you did not cause to grow, which came up overnight and perished overnight. ¹¹ Should I not also have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 people, who do not know the difference between their right hand and their left, as well as many animals?”

Jonah had forgotten the forgiveness given to him by God. This seems to be common among those who refuse to forgive. They cannot understand the grace given to themselves so that they can forgive others. Jonah did not do anything for the plant to grow over him. It was an act of grace by God, not an obligation. 

God took away that plant and Jonah had compassion for it. He had done nothing for the plant but still had compassion. God, therefore, gives grace to all that will accept it because He has compassion over His creation. If we walk with Him, we must also have compassion so that we forgive others.

The presence of God is made manifest when we forgive others. If we fail to do so, we do not have His manifest presence and can expect no forgiveness from God. Forgiveness is one of the litmus tests that indicate whether or not we are Christians. It is that important.

The need to forgive others is ever-present.