When I was a child, I was taught in church that when we realized we had done something wrong we needed to first and foremost repent and turn to God. When Jesus teaches us how to pray, this is a vital component of our prayer. We are taught to ask God to forgive us our trespasses. We are also taught that to fully receive God’s forgiveness we must forgive those who trespass against us.
The ultimate witness to forgiving others for me is Christ on the cross pleading for God to forgive humanity for the pain that he is enduring in his humanness, because we don’t realize what we are doing. It is truly an act of our faith, an act of our love of God when led by the Spirit of God we can find forgiveness in our heart for any wrongdoing.
If you notice when I started out, I said first we must repent, because there was a second part I was taught. I was taught that true repentance involved confessing and apologizing to any other wronged parties, if possible.
It is never easy for most of us to find the humility to admit we are wrong, to God or to each other. And for some reason when we do things that are not easy, we often seem to expect some sort of immediate reward or quid pro quo. For example, if I apologize to you, don’t I have a right to expect you to accept my apology?
What kind of person doesn’t accept an apology after all? WRONG ANSWER. If an apology is genuine, if our repentance is genuine, then it is given unconditionally. It is given not for the response we expect from God or from someone else, but because we truly regret turning away from God, we truly regret what we’ve done.
Just some thoughts which may be worth pondering on this beautiful morning.
Shalom,
Pastor Peggy