Don’t Ask Jesus to Forgive

Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.

KJV, Ephesians, 4:31-32

This is difficult work. It was so much easier when I could just ask Jesus to forgive everything. I could make a deathbed confession of belief in Jesus as my Lord and Savior and be forgiven for a lifetime of sins. I didn’t have to think about my participation in the process, or about my responsibility for my experience. 

• What makes you think you can ask Jesus to forgive everything?

“Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree. Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins.”  “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

• Jesus never told you he will forgive you for everything. In teaching his disciples how to pray Jesus said, “And if you forgive men their faults, your Father in heaven will also forgive you.”

Are you saying that I must do the forgiving?

• You are beginning to understand. He also said, “Take heed to yourselves: If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive him. And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again to thee, saying, I repent; thou shalt forgive him.”

The Bible has a long tradition of asking you to forgive, as in this passage, “Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin--; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written. And the LORD said unto Moses, Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book.”

• Jesus said, “And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses. But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses.”

So you are saying that just like my story I must forgive myself and those who have harmed me in order to be forgiven?

• That is exactly the case. Hear the words of Jesus, “Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.”  You are conditioned to judge yourself and everyone else all of the time. These judgments are seldom accurate, and never have all of the facts. In any case you are each actors in the personal drama that you are directing. It is necessary to forgive everyone involved in order to able to release the drama and move on to something new.

You have not answered my question about the quotes from The Acts of the Apostles and John.

• This is doctrine that came into existence during the early years of Christianity, after the Resurrection.

Didn’t Jesus routinely say “thy sins be forgiven thee”

•  Jesus was recognizing the good in the individuals he healed, and reminded them that health is God’s good.

What are you saying?

• Sin is a departure from the law of your being, falling short of the Divine Law. Man’s sins are forgiven when he opens his mind to the fact that he is heir only to God’s good. Jesus told his disciples to preach in his name to all nations that men and women should turn away from sin and the guilt that goes with it. When you recognize the error of your thinking, and turn back to the truth, your sins are forgiven.

You are still emphasizing that only I can forgive my sins. No intermediary can change my thinking for me, and no intermediary can manifest for me something other than what I am thinking and feeling.

• You are truly on the path to build a more spiritual you. Let’s review the Ten Commandments, and see how well you understand them.

 KJV, Acts 5:29-31

 KJV, 1 John 1:9

 KJV, Matthew 6:14

 KJV, , Luke 17:3-4

 KJV, Exodus 32:32-33

 KJV, Mark 11:25

 KJV, Matthew 18:21-22

 KJV, Mark 2:5