forgiveness is not an option

I seem to have developed the habit of writing mini-sermons.

Whoever you are, blog reader - you've been wronged. You've been unjustly accused, you've had things taken away from you, and people have said mean things behind your back and to your face. There's a good chance someone has abandoned you at one point or another; there's a disturbingly high likelihood that you've been abused. Bad things have happened to you for no reason.

Do you recognize your life in that list? I do. And I remember every person responsible for every one of those injustices. It's the "Naughty List" in the back of my mind - the names and faces of the people who have hurt me, who have hurt my family. I don't want to forgive them; they don't deserve forgiveness.

This is the part where most people say that you must forgive for your own sake - bitterness only hurts the heart that harbors it. And that's very true; if you don't forgive, hate can consume you from the inside out and make you into someone you don't even recognize. I'm certainly not going to try to debunk that principle - it's very sound. I would, however, like to point out a frequently-overlooked truth: Christians don't have a choice.

Oh, dear, I've upset the anti-Calvinists.

Here's the thing; if you believe that the Bible is the inerrant word of God, I'm pretty sure you can't wiggle your way out of this one, because....

• Firstly: we are commanded to love the Lord our God with all our hearts, souls, and minds (Matthew 22.37).

• Secondly: Jesus says that, if we love Him, we are to keep his commandments (John 14:14-16).

• Thirdly: we are commanded to forgive as Christ has forgiven us (Colossians 3:13).

• Fourthly: How has Christ forgiven us? Psalm 103:12 says that God has removed our transgressions as far from us as the East is from the West; since the earth is round, neither direction has a stopping point. God has forgiven us infinitely and unconditionally.

• Fifthly: Oh, yeah, there's that little verse where Jesus says "judge not, and you shall not be judged" (Luke 6:37). I'm pretty sure He meant it.
  

Conclusion: We are commanded to forgive each other. Period. No backsies. No matter what.

It's natural to withhold forgiveness from those who do not deserve it. But we are called to be molded to the nature of Christ, which is supernatural. I don't like forgiving people very much, and I'm not very good at it. I keep having to forgive the same people for the same things; in fact, I'm pretty sure that in a couple of cases I'm pretty close to the 490 mark. But God's forgiveness has no limit, and neither should ours.