“Forgiven! Your sins are forgiven!” This is the triumphant shout of heaven catapulted through the airwaves of the spirit into the heart of a believer in Jesus Christ, the moment they come out of the waters of baptism! “Forgiven” forever becomes their new identity. “Forgiven” becomes their new position in life. When you rise up from that watery grave, Jesus hands you an invisible name tag to wear everywhere that you go, and it reads: “Hi, my name is Forgiven!” We have nothing to be more thankful for in life than this.
I’m thankful for my house, but someday I’ll go to bed, and I won’t wake up, and this house will no longer be my home.
I’m thankful for my car, but the second law of Thermodynamics will eventually get the best of it.
I’m thankful for my job, but someday it has to come to an end, and when it does, my pension will only profit me while I’m living, and I won’t always be living. My house, vehicle, pension — It’s all like sand sifting through open hands. They won’t profit me when I’m dead. However, having my sins forgiven will. Having my sins forgiven will profit me eternally.
Above all other things, we should be thankful that 2,000 years ago Almighty God became a man named Jesus Christ and gave his life for us on a criminal’s cross, so that we could have our story changed from a story of guilt, shame and condemnation to one of forgiveness and redemption.
And for all of the “Forgiven” out there, we have a few assignments, and one of those important assignments is to forgive those around us. It’s actually more than an assignment, it’s a command. The Bible reads in Colossians 3:13, “Bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do.” Friend, when you were forgiven, you were also born again into God’s family, and you need to be about your Father’s business, the business of forgiveness. Forgiving others is proof of your thankfulness toward God that he gave all to forgive you.
Jesus says in Matthew 6:14-15, “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” Jesus actually made our continual access to His forgiveness contingent on whether or not we forgive others.
There may have been a time where the liberating forgiveness of God rushed into your life, but that flow of forgiveness has a shut off valve if we so choose to turn it. Jesus tells a parable in Matthew chapter 18 about a servant who had an enormous debt forgiven by his master. That same servant then went out and found someone who owed himself a debt as well, a much, much smaller debt than the one that he owed, and he took that debtor by the throat, saying, “Pay me what you owe!” He then threw this man into prison until he could pay the debt. The master heard about what the servant who he had forgiven had done. The “master was angry and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due to him.” Jesus then says, “So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses.”
This Thanksgiving season, show your thankfulness to God by forgiving those who have wronged you. Express your thanksgiving by forgiving. Look to Jesus, who after being mocked, spit on, beaten, tortured and crucified, looked upon his enemies and said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do (Luke 23:34).”