We Christians place a higher standard on one another than God Himself does on us. I’m talking about forgiveness & repentance. We sit in judgment of others and base our forgiving them on our determination of the level of (or lack of) repentance we see in them.
Thank God, we are not held to the same scrutiny before we received forgiveness from God!
Read this slowly and prayerfully: Repentance, while expected of believers, is not a requirement for forgiveness from God. But apparently it often is from one human to another.
If we are to understand forgiveness, we must realize that God's motivation for pardoning sins is found only in Himself and His love. Like the prodigal son in Luke 15, we can do nothing to earn it.
The wayward son "came to his senses" (v. 17); that is to say, he began to think the truth about himself and the situation he had created. We do the same thing when we repent-we have a change of mind.
In the parable, however, the father ran toward his son when he saw him from a distance. He threw his arms around him and kissed him – all gestures of forgiveness. All this was done BEFORE the son had expressed his repentance.
Too often people require a great deal of groveling, humbling, confession and promises of better behavior before forgiving another. What we ask for is more than God requires of us!
Our forgiveness was fully taken care of at the cross, and it was applied to each of us personally when we received Christ as Savior.
Our repentance is a change of mind about our actions that allows us to experience God's forgiveness without guilt.
So then, it stands to reason that we should not be holding someone else up to the light to see how repentant WE think they are before we forgive them. Ask God to reveal any area of un-forgiveness you may have toward someone you feel hasn't shown the 'proper' amount of repentance to suit you. We're all guilty of this.....WE need to repent!
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