We Can't Make Things Right But We Can Be Forgiven

 July 19, 2024

Friday

We must admit that we haven't escaped the ability to sin. It may make us sick as our stomachs. We may not have been unintentional. It may have been something that has come upon us slowly. We may have acted on an impulse. The worst sins are those in which we hurt others. We always hurt ourselves. So, we set about to make it right. The truth is that no one can make a sin right. No matter how many right things we do, the wrong thing cannot be undone. Too many people are captured by the guilt They are left unforgiven by others. They may even have trouble forgiving themselves. Even Christians have a hard time understanding forgiveness.

God has forgiven us for our sins. That does not take away the fact that He is a just God. Forgiveness is about establishing and maintaining a good relationship. It is created through the relationship we have with Christ. It releases the image of God that is within us. God is forgiving. We have that same forgiveness within us because we are created in His image. An evidence of a restored relationship with God is forgiving others.

Yet, on the other side of this equation is the fact that God is just. Restoring that relationship meant that our sins needed to be carried far away from us. As long as they clung to us, we were always condemned. Jesus died on the cross and was declared victorious in the resurrection for justice to be served. It did not make our sins good. It paid for them. There is a difference. 

I know that some people say that Jesus made it as if we had never sinned, but that does not remove our memories. We know that we have sinned. We know that we are forgiven. The sins are not held against us. So, God will never bring them up again. However, that doesn't mean that God has a hole in His memory either. He is so perfect in His justice and forgiveness that He choses not to think of our sins when He sees us. He sees the sacrifice of Jesus that paid for those sins.

If we establish that relationship with God through our forgiveness, the release of forgiveness for those things done against us follows. It isn't that complicated. We are free to assume the image of God that includes forgiveness. Those who don't forgive aren't forgiven. This is a condition that we may grow in but it is absolutely necessary to understand our own forgiveness.

We must understand that we can't make our sins right. We must understand that we are forgiven by grace. We must understand the price that is paid. We must understand that believing in Jesus is more than believing He is the Son of God. It is coming to know Him as evidenced by our own forgiving others.

We simply are not His if we fail to get this. So, we forgive again and again and again. We visualize the sins against us being carried by Jesus to the cross. We say that we forgive by the blood of Jesus. Yes, we say it out loud. And we keep doing so until we forgive. We do the same thing when it is us who can't forgive us. We can't make sin right but we can be forgiven.

Matthew 6:14–15 (NASB 2020) ¹⁴ “For if you forgive other people for their offenses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. ¹⁵ But if you do not forgive other people, then your Father will not forgive your offenses.

Romans 5:1 (NASB 2020) ¹ Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,