Man is always busy making choices, and you have heard that you always have a choice. However, I disagree. It maybe so that we are always busy making choices, but we do not always have a choice.

Some time ago we were blessed by somebody celebrating her birthday. There were red-velvet and chocolate cupcakes. You could choose; no problem.

The problem is however, the man driving very fast down a street, ignoring a red traffic light. He also made a choice. His choice was not to stop. Point is he did not had the right to make such a choice. Driving through a red traffic light is not a legitimate choice.

The same is true for Christians, the day we were born again and started following Christ, certain things in life was not optional anymore.

For example; The Lord said: “you shall be holy; for I am holy”; it is not optional for us, God commands and expects us to live holy lives.

Jesus also gave the command to forgive each other.

Jesus said in Mat 16:19

And I will give to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatever you shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

One of these keys is forgiveness and I want to share some thoughts about forgiveness today.

We must look again at something the Bible sees as very important.

It is so important that Jesus said our eternal destination depends on it.

Jesus calls it a given in Mat 6:12 (Part of the Our Father prayer)

 forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors;

Jesus emphasized it just thereafter in verse 14 and 15

For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you:

But if you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses

Then we read in Mar 11:25 -26  And when you stand praying, forgive, if you have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.

But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses.

Mat 5:23 – 24

Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has ought against you;

Leave there your gift before the altar, and go your way; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.

Can you see that forgiveness is so important for God that with Him it does not matter who the guilty party is. Whether you have something against somebody, or whether the other person has something against you, does not matter. He says you must go and make things right again.

Think about it, when there is trouble between you and somebody else, God expects you to take initiative.

We can read now from  Mat 18 verse 21 to 35.

Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?

Mat 18:22  Jesus said to him, I say not to you, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.

Mat 18:23  Therefore is the kingdom of heaven likened to a certain king, which would take account of his servants.

Mat 18:24  And when he had begun to reckon, one was brought to him, which owed him ten thousand talents.

Mat 18:25  But for as much as he had not to pay, his lord commanded him to be sold, and his wife, and children, and all that he had, and payment to be made.

Mat 18:26  The servant therefore fell down, and worshipped him, saying, Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay you all.

Mat 18:27  Then the lord of that servant was moved with compassion, and loosed him, and forgave him the debt.

Mat 18:28  But the same servant went out, and found one of his fellow servants, which owed him an hundred pence: and he laid hands on him, and took him by the throat, saying, Pay me that you owe.

Mat 18:29  And his fellow servant fell down at his feet, and sought him, saying, Have patience with me, and I will pay you all.

Mat 18:30  And he would not: but went and cast him into prison, till he should pay the debt.

Mat 18:31  So when his fellow servants saw what was done, they were very sorry, and came and told to their lord all that was done.

Mat 18:32  Then his lord, after that he had called him, said to him, O you wicked servant, I forgave you all that debt, because you desired me:

Mat 18:33  Should not you also have had compassion on your fellow servant, even as I had pity on you?

Mat 18:34  And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due to him.

Mat 18:35  So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also to you, if you from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses.

Remember what we said earlier, our eternal destination depends on forgiveness.

And here it is important to understand that it is not only about the forgiveness received as a result of the blood of Jesus

Yes, the Word very clearly teaches that we have been redeemed / bought and cleansed by the blood of Christ.

1Pet 1:18-19  For as much as you know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot,

1 Cor 6:20 For you are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.

Heb 9:14  How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

So the blood paid for our sins and it cleanses us.

But, and this is important that we get this part right, the blood did not automatically forgive all our sins.

Jesus said in Mat 26:28  for this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.

Please note the shedding of the blood is for the remission of sins, the shedding of blood is not forgiveness.

It is confirmed in Heb 9:22 … and without shedding of blood is no remission.

Understand what is being said here: forgiveness has been made possible by the sacrifice of Jesus at the cross. In other words, if the blood of Jesus was not there, then forgiveness would not be possible.

Everybody’s sin is paid, but not everybody’s sin is forgiven. Yes, even the atheist’s sin, who declares there is no God, is paid.

The problem however is that payment of debt or damage is not directly equal to forgiveness.

Forgiveness can be withheld even if the debt was paid in full.

We hear about murderers being caught, tried and punished and they serve their punishment.  However, this does not mean the beloveds of the of murdered person forgive the murderer.

But God wants to forgive, He cannot wait to forgive us. It is exactly why He send His Son to pay the price. So that He can forgive.

1Jn 1:9  says: If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

It then brings us to the two things God is warning us against:

Unrepentant sin and an unforgiving heart.

1) Unrepentant sin, The sin we know about but for one or other reason we cannot or do not want to repent. We are not talking about something you cannot even remember anymore. Maybe you did something while still in primary school. You know the kind of thing you have to go sit and ask God, O please just do not let me forget anything.

God is faithful and just, and He will remind you through His Holy Spirit, and when He does, do not let pride, arrogance and self-righteousness stop you from asking forgiveness.

And again, here it is not only repentance before God. It is not just unrepentant sin against God.

As we said before, the Lord also expects us to go to our neighbour and make things right. Even when you are not at fault.

Remember Mat 5:23 -24

 Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has ought against you;

Leave there your gift before the altar, and go your way; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.

The unrepentant sin we are talking about is something you are very well aware off, but for one or other reason you cannot or do not want to repent and make it right.

Deep inside, you know you are doing wrong, in Hi characteristic quiet but urgent manner, the Holy Spirit already draw you attention to it.

Maybe you already talk to God and told Him what you did is not exactly sin, because God should know your special circumstances.

Normally when we see the same thing we are doing in somebody else’s life, we will pass judgement immediately, that is sin. Repent brother, sister, but with us there is always special circumstances to be considered, or maybe we say, later I will attend to it later, only not now.

But God is making it very clear in this warning:

Heb 3:15

To day if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts

Do not wait!

Ask God to show you what is a problem now, especially where you are busy hardening your heart, ignoring the Holy Spirit.

Do not harden your hearts.

Somebody once said: Apologizing does not always mean that you are wrong and the other person is right. It just means that you value your relationship more than your ego. For us Christian it means we value our relationship with God more than our egos.

We must realize the importance of this matter. You only receive forgiveness on earth. You are not going to get any forgiveness in heaven.

Heb 9:27 is absolute clear about this. …it is appointed to men once to die, but after this the judgment.  When we close our eyes on earth there is no more second chances.

2) The second thing that will keep you out of heaven is unforgiveness on your part. Remember what we said, forgiveness is one of the keys God gave us here on earth.

Jesus commanded us to forgive those who transgressed against us.

Look again at the parable we read in Mat 18:

1. Servant number one owes his lord a lot and cannot pay.
2. He begged is lord .
3. His lord, moved with compassion, forgave him the debt and let him go.
4. Servant number two owes servant number one.
5. He also begged.
6. But servant number one refused to have mercy and cast him into prison

It is not difficult to understand from this parable that the lord is God and the servants are us, and the debt is our sin before God.

Servant number one is you and I with big debt and transgression before God and servant number two is our neighbor with noticeable smaller debt against us.

Remember when you were born again, how you so conscious of your sin before God and asked Him to forgive. God forgave you and now He is coming to you saying go and do likewise.

There is something in this parable that we normally mis, and that is that the forgiveness from the lord towards the servant number one was conditional. Remember the our father prayer:

forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors

When servant number one refused to forgave servant number two the forgiveness he received was revoked.

The parable ends with these words

Verse 34 -35

And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due to him.

So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also to you, if you from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses.

Do not allow unforgiveness in your heart to undone the forgiveness you received when you were born again.

Revelation 3:5 is very clear that it is possible that your name can be blotted out of the book of life.

Forgiveness is not always easy to do. We used the example of the murderer. I do not say today it is easy, what I do say is that it is important for God and with Jesus in you it is possible.

I shall not be true to God’s Word if I do not tell you that you do not have a choice. Forgive we must forgive. Unforgiveness is the closing of doors and it binds you. Release the other person so that you may be free.

Sometimes people say things that makes forgiveness difficult for us;

Did you hear about forgive and forget. The they quickly say the Bible says God forgets our sin. Well it is not exactly what is in God’s Word.

This is what is written:

Jer 31:34  … I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.

Note what God said: he will not remember / mention it again , not that He can forget. What it is telling us is to go back to 2 Cor 10:5 …bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;

It is like parking your car in the evening  and not thinking about it the rest of the night. In the morning, you did not forget you have a car, although you did not thought about it all night.  In the same way the Lord want you to get to a point where you will not think about it anymore. In other words, you will not allow that what you forgave to keep on occupying your thoughts.

So when the devil shoots his arrows on you to make you believe that you cannot forgive or did not forgive correctly because you cannot forget, catch that thought and bring it to the obedience of Christ.

To forget is not a blessing, it means you are getting old and your brains does not always knows in which drawer something was placed. Do not let anybody tell you, you must forget to forgive..

It is what you do with those hurting negative thoughts that count. Do not allow them to control your life

Another myth is that forgiveness and trust is the same thing. Well it is not.

Trust is something that is earned over time. It is not like you will trust anybody you met for the first time. And sometimes we do not even trust somebody we know with certain things.

I am sure all of us can think about something important to us that we will not trust with somebody we know very well. In other words just because I do not trust somebody does not equates to sin.

Maybe somebody in your home or family hurt you or did something that totally destroyed your trust in that person. Maybe you were with someone in a business transaction and it did not work out. Whatever it was, forgiveness and releasing people is what God expects from us and it does not depend on our ability to trust the person that must be forgiven.

But always remember, the Lord love the person you must forgive just as much as He loves you. His blood also paid for this person. And remember negative thoughts about a person are the same as cursing the person. We cannot think evil against another, but only good. So speak life and blessings and if you know the person is not saved, pray for his / her soul.

The forgiveness we give, is because of the forgiveness we received, it is about what Jesus did on the cross. It is about Jesus in us making everything possible. Yes with Christ in us we can and must forgive.