Forgiveness

A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.
By this shall all men know that ye are My Disciples, if ye have love one to another. John 13:34-35

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=568608747010220

BELIEVE IT OR NOT, Satan is not the only one who likes to bring up the past failures of a Believer; many who call themselves Christians like to do the same thing, and I can’t tell you just how wrong it is to do that.

Once a Believer has asked the Lord for forgiveness, it is ungodly, wicked, immoral, and hurtful for a fellow Believer to bring up that subject again. As Christians, it’s not our duty to constantly remind another Believer of his past; it has been washed by the Blood of Christ, and if washed by the precious Blood of Christ, then we, too, are to forgive.

What right do I have to bring up something that has been erased, cleansed, forgotten, by God? The answer to that question is, none. If a Believer has already been to the Lord and asked for forgiveness, then I have no right to bring up that issue or hold it over that Believer.

Too many Christians enjoy holding the past over another Believer’s head, and yet they don’t like it when someone else does it to them! The bottom line is, we must adhere to the words of Christ: “For if you forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Heavenly Father forgive you” (Matthew 6:14-15).

This means that if a person has failed, then we are to forgive him. And, when we forgive him, then we receive forgiveness from our Heavenly Father. However, if we fail to forgive others, then His forgiveness, which we all so desperately need, is also withheld.

Remember, God never works with what might have been; He works from what is. Man is the opposite; he likes to work with what might have been. But we should take a lesson from Christ, our example, and learn to forgive without ever again bringing up a person’s past failures. Being reminded of past failures not only hurts that person, but it also hinders the work of God. We must always remember that no one ever gets away with sin. When a Christian sins, and he goes before the Lord in humble contrition, the Bible teaches that God Is faithful and just to forgive us our sins (1 John 1:9). This, my friends is the gospel.

Pastor Gabriel Swaggart

We are told that no human is given the right to judge any other human. If they need judging and punishment we are to give that duty to government officials or let God take care of it. Many Christians take on the duty of God by acting on their judgments instead of the love that radiates God in us.

We are coming to the holiday season where even greeting cards are made to express good will, peace, and love. How many people are choosing people to withhold that from by not even speaking? Many families, even, are ripped apart by such as this.

My brother accidentally ran over another sibling's dog many years ago. Just that i never noticed him feeling guilty for it.
My past sins are worse than that. But i still punish myself for them. Maybe i envy that he has moved on so easily.

by the standard that you have set here no Christian could ever speak on any failure that occurs in Christendom.
I am one who is glad that he brought up the subject, because it is one that seems to be left behind.

Christians seem to have difficulty with seeing the difference in seeing sin, knowing of sin, and blaming someone for the sin. The Lord tells us to be truthful always and I think that means even with ourselves. We are told to know what sin is, even told that the ten commandments do that. But God tells us that it is His business to do all the judging, it is not our place.
When we judge we set ourselves up as gods.

Hi Blik, while Jesus clearly tells us, "Do not judge...." in Matthew 7:1, He also says ~this~ just five verses later,


He also told us many other things concerning our judging of others, like these two passages show us, for instance.


So, we are also clearly called to judge others, rightly/for their good, for our good, for the good of others, and to honor and glorify God, but judge them we must whenever we deem it (judge it) necessary to do so, yes

I suppose this also begs the question, "what is Jesus' meaning (and perhaps the scope of His meaning, as well) when He said, "do not judge" in Matthew 7:1

Thanks!

~Deut

You have contradicted yourself and Scripture.

First, you say that no human is given the right to judge another human, then you say that duty is given to government officials... who are human.

Scripture simply does not say anything like, "no human is given the right to judge any other human". It does say, "Judge not, lest ye be judged" but it also says, "Stop judging by mere appearances and make a right judgement."

We cannot live as Christ calls us to live without judging others. Unless we judge them, we can have no way of determining whether their character and actions are consistent with God's ways or not. What we are not to do is to consider them unredeemable; that is up to God alone.

You make a very good point.
Forgiveness is something we do for our sake. That we free ourselves of that baggage of past hurts that do not serve a life moving toward a healthy future.
Too often we witness people in our own circle who judge people who do forgive others. The Texas court case in your first two posts and the defendant in that criminal trial is the latest tragic example.

Oops. You are right, there are certain times and ways we are to judge. But even as Christ gave us the Lord's Prayer we are told we must not judge. It takes much prayer, study, and meditation to sort it all out.

Personally, I came to realize that God gives us free choice and we certainly should do that for others and not try to dictate to them but accept their choices.

Like Paul teaches us, even though we cannot live as Christ wants we can manage our will to want to live as Christ wants.

Hmm, I was actually thinking about this earlier today...because I had did something I shouldn't have and it was excessive. On the fence about open confessions but yes I confessed to the Lord but I was super beating myself up about it. Almost in a "high and mighty" sort of fashion, if that makes sense. Letting the guilt toss me around and thrashing myself with it as a form of personal punishment.

But then I was like "oh, forgiveness"...that's a thing. So umm...forgive us our tresspasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Does that include me? I have to forgive myself?!?!? Is that a thing? So I didn't really want to but at least the concept is germinating...I think I may have, because I feel "mostly" forgiven. But being honest I think I only "mostly" forgive myself.

I could go on and on about this because it just sort of opened up for me today where I gave it more serious thought. Tis a hard thing to forgive ones self. I'm curious what you all think about that, because while I've heard this in self-help preaching I'm not sure it's a thing. I have loads to learn about forgiveness so perhaps I'll table it for now.




but yeah...I do think we are called to judge. It is fair to say that the standard by which we judge will be meted unto us and I've seen this play out but executed sound judgement is critical in a believers life. It's kind of scary that this concept "Jesus told us not to judge" has rooted so firmly in the church.

Fleshly judgements coming from carnality NO. ERROR.

Godly judgements? Certainly, although it's late and I don't want to be too disjointed about deferring to the Lord always as the FINAL authority. Plenty of scripture in the NT on this as well as the OT. I think part of the issue is our English predicament of confusing what words mean like the difference between discernment and judgement and perceiving.

Anyway night

I think it would be helpful to teach, what is proper judging and what is improper judgement. I often see even on this forum people claim that some one has judged them when no judgement was rendered, and I also see those who say do not judge things that we should, and I see improper judgement of others, it like we have it all wrong because we don't know what is right. This has be a successful campaign of the devil to confound what is the proper context for Christians to judge.

I guess the context answers your question.
Because the op spoke about the need for Christians to forgive, you called into question if he has forgiven Christians who are failing in this area.
It's easy to call into question the failings of any Christian who speaks on nearly any subject. All of us have failings and if it were required we be perfect before addressing a subject we would all have to sit quiet and that wouldn't bode well for preaching, teaching, and evangelising.

I wouldn't answer you question of I were him, because it's not a simple question, it's a rhetoric method, used to silence people for speaking up on a subject. Called an ad hominem, which is where you call into question the integrity of the speaker rather than address the subject being spoken of. Granted this was more clever than typical because you questioned him concerning his about his character concerning the subject he was speaking on, but it's still bad form.