Colossians 3:13 “Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.”

I’m learning a lot about forgiveness. It’s funny, because as a Christian I thought I understood forgiveness pretty well. As I’ve found out, however, that’s not entirely the case. I’ve discovered there’s a lot more to forgiveness than just the trite “forgive and forget”. I think if we were all honest, we’d all have to admit to having trouble with forgiveness from time to time. There are lots of reasons why we might feel like we can’t forgive someone or we shouldn’t forgive someone. In fact, the number one misconception I’ve had to deal with when it comes to forgiveness is that forgiveness is what we offer when someone is sorry. That’s not necessarily true. In fact, forgiveness is something we need to do even when the other person isn’t sorry. After all, that’s what Christ did for us when he died on the cross. He didn’t wait for someone to say sorry before he prayed “forgive them”. He didn’t wait for the world to apologize for sin before he offered himself as a sacrifice for sin. No, he died and rose again to forgive us, then left it up to us to accept that forgiveness. When the Bible says we need forgive like the Lord, that’s what it’s talking about. It may not be easy, but when we forgive like Christ forgave us, it’s just one more way we can demonstrate the good news.