Unforgiven

Can you imagine standing before the throne of God on the Day of Judgment as your sins are laid out before you, hearing the word, "Unforgiven."  Rather than receiving the mercy and grace you so desperately need, having judgment passed according to what you have earned and deserve?  Who would want to stand before an unforgiving God?

I wouldn't think anyone would want that but there are many who are choosing it.  I'm not really talking about unbelievers or people who are blind to the fact of God's existence or have no awareness of his judgment.  I'm talking about believers, church goers, people who embrace God's Word as truth.

Surely not.  No one who understands the depth of our sins, the cost of our redemption and the peril of ignoring both as he/she stands before God would ever make such a choice.  But they do.  That choice is made every day by people who lay claim to the Christian faith, embrace the biblical truths and are convinced of a day of judgment.

The choice to be unforgiven is made in the choice to be unforgiving.  Jesus warned very clearly in Matthew 6;14-15, "… if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins."  Have you ever really considered that part of the Lord's Prayer, which pleads, "forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors"?

If God is to forgive us as we have forgiven others and we do not forgive others, what else can he do but leave us unforgiven?  If I do not believe in forgiveness enough to forgive others, like myself, who do not deserve it, I do not believe in forgiveness enough to receive it.  Forgiveness or unforgiveness is the harvest we get from the seeds that we sow and you can be sure "a man reaps what he sows" (Gal 6:7).

I know that forgiving someone who has wronged you deeply is difficult.  It couldn't have been easy for Jesus, from the cross, to plead, "Father, forgive them" (Luke 23:34).  But Jesus did forgive them, setting us an example of forgiveness, regardless of the offense.  Even the fact that your offender's action is inexcusable does not change our need to forgive as all forgiveness is based on actions that are inexcusable, otherwise they would have an excuse.

Don't become unforgiven by being unforgiving.  Forgive and open your heart to receive God's forgiveness.  His way is right and his way is to forgive.  Jus' Say'n.