Forgiving Others

Part of Sunday's message on the Lord's Prayer dealt with the forgiveness of others. I pressed forward with two points:

1. The Bible does not know of a non-forgiving Christian. The forgiven will forgive.
2. Thomas Watson's definition of forgiveness is helpful. "We know we have forgiven others when we strive against all thoughts of revenge; when we will not do our enemies mischief, but wish well to them, grieve at their calamities, pray for them, seek reconciliation with them, and show ourselves ready on all occasions to relieve them."

Of course, there are many hard cases. I want to revisit the hardest. What do you do when the person you need to forgive either does not think they have done anything wrong or are just plain unrepentant?

What are we to do? God never forgives an unrepentant person. And yet He does forgive us of sins we do not even know we commit. God calls us to forgive even our enemies - and an enemy rarely apologizes. I think that the act of forgiveness toward people who do not want it, is really for our own heart. We are to lay down all ill will we wish on others. We are to put away our right to be angry and move on.

When will you know you have forgiven someone? The key for me is when I stop having imaginary conversations with the people who have hurt me. When that happens, I know I have believed the gospel... that God forgave me. I am thankful that God does not struggle to forgive me the way I struggle to forgive others. When I repent toward him He welcomes me back and removes my sin again and again. How dare I withhold the gospel from others (especially those who repent).