Forgiveness: Understood, Received, and Given, Pt. 1

God offers forgiveness to all who come to Him & then empowers us to do what we might think impossible: forgive those who offend or harm us.

Forgiveness: Understood, Received, & Given, Pt. 1

"You answered them, O LORD our God;
You were to them God-Who-Forgives,
Though You took vengeance on their deeds."

(Psalm 99:8)

Greetings from Indianapolis, Indiana. Ashley and I are attending the annual Southern Baptist Convention meeting, serving as messengers of our local church: Great Hills Baptist in Austin, TX. There are already over 10,000 messengers who have pre-registered. Jeff and Cindy Asmussen will also be attending and representing our church. Cindy is a trustee with the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the SBC. I will be making a nomination speech on Tuesday for the SBC to elect Dr. David Allen as our next president. There are six men running for the office. I feel that Dr. Allen would lead our convention of churches very well. There will be other important items, amendments, resolutions, etc. that will be discussed and voted on at the meeting. Ashley and I always enjoy going and serving as messengers for GHBC. We do not always enjoy all the business meeting items, but we love seeing friends whom we usually only see once a year. Please pray for us to have a blessed and safe time, and pray that God's will be done in the SBC.

On Sunday, I will preach a new message I have prepared for Father's Day. I am preaching on the wonderful topic of forgiveness. Perhaps just the mention of this concept brings a smile to your face or maybe a conviction to your heart. Forgiveness is what God specializes in, and He requires that we do the same if we are followers of Jesus Christ. So many unbelievers and believers too are trapped in the bitter cage of unforgiveness.

A new book I started reading based on the recommendation of one of my Macedonian pastor friends, Dr. Saso, is Exclusion and Embrace, by Miroslav Volf. This book made the top 100 list of religious works in the 20th century by Christianity Today. Dr. Volf is from Croatia and is a Professor of Theology and the director for the Yale Center for Faith and Culture at Yale University. After speaking on the topic of forgiveness, Dr. Volf was asked a penetrating question by one of the listeners: "But can you embrace a cetnik [Serbian]?" It was the winter of 1993, and Croatia was at war with Serbia. The Serbs had devastated Volf's home country of Croatia, raped many women, burned many churches, and destroyed cities. The question to Volf was, can you forgive them? Volf thought about the question and then gave this response, "No, I cannot—but as a follower of Christ I think I should be able to." (p. 9)

I am excited to share this message on the wonderful theme of forgiveness in these devotions this week. God, through Christ's death on the cross, did not exclude us in our sins but embraced us with love and forgiveness when we confessed our sins and turned to Jesus for salvation by faith. The gospel of Jesus Christ is still the greatest news ever heard! God offers forgiveness to all who come to Him, and then He empowers us to do what we might think impossible and unimaginable: to forgive those who offend or harm us. Our God is the awesome God of all, and He does mighty and miraculous things because of who He is. He is, as Psalm 99:8 states, "God-Who-Forgives."