It impossible to overstate the importance of forgiveness - that because Christ is in us, we are forgiving creatures by our true nature, and not to forgive is to act contrary to that nature and contrary to the command to forgive throughout the New Testament. In the Lord’s Prayer, Christ makes it quite clear that our sins are not forgiven if we do not forgive other people their sins against us. There are no exceptions. As C.S. Lewis states in his writing, ”On Forgiveness”: “He doesn’t say we are to forgive other people’s sins provided they are not too frightful, or provided there are extenuating circumstances, or anything of that sort. We are to forgive them all, however spiteful, however mean, however often they are repeated. If we don’t, we shall be forgiven none of our own.”
In that same writing, Lewis goes on to observe that often, when we are asking God to forgive us, we are asking Him to do something quite different - we are asking Him to excuse us. However, there is all the difference in the world between forgiving and excusing. Forgiving says, “Yes, you have done this thing, but I forgive you and I will never hold it against you.” Excusing says, “I see that you couldn’t help it or didn’t mean it; you weren’t really to blame.” If one weren’t really to blame, then there is nothing to forgive. In that sense, forgiveness and excusing are opposites.
Trouble often arises when what we call asking God’s forgiveness really consists of asking God to accept our excuses. As Lewis points out, what leads us to this mistake is that there is usually some amount of excuse in our prayer, some “extenuating circumstance”. We are all very anxious to point these circumstances out to God when we ask for His forgiveness. We are also very anxious to point these excuses out to others we have sinned against when we seek their forgiveness. We even make up excuses for some one who has sinned against us when we are forgiving them, saying they did it because they didn’t know any better, or they didn’t mean it, or they were going through a bad time; to acknowledge that the person acted in an intentional manner toward us is just too painful to consider.
When we engage in this activity of making excuses or accepting excuses from others, we fail to acknowledge that no matter what the excuse was, the fact remains that the sin is inexcusable but not, thank God, unforgivable. If we forget that what we did or what was done to us is inexcusable and therefore, must be forgiven, we come away with the idea that we have repented and been forgiven or have forgiven another when all we have really done is satisfy ourselves with our own excuses or the excuses of another. We must acknowledge the inexcusable wrong that we did or was done to us and then ask to be forgiven or grant forgiveness to another.
Lewis suggests two remedies to help avoid the pitfall of making and accepting excuses instead of seeking and granting forgiveness. First, remember that God knows all the excuses much better that we do. There is no possibility that He will overlook our wrongdoing, and we are only wasting time talking to God about all the excuses; we must get to the inexcusable sin that is left. Secondly, we must truly believe in the forgiveness of sins. A great deal of our anxiety and excuse-making comes from not really believing that God will forgive. Lewis states:
“Real forgiveness means looking steadily at the sin that is leftover without any excuse, after all allowances have been made, and seeing it in all its horror, dirt, meanness, and malice, and nevertheless being wholly reconciled to the man who has done it. That, and only that, is forgiveness, and that we can always have from God if we ask for it.”
Our prayer for you today at No Heart Left Behind® is that you will come to know that God is a truly a forgiving God. May you look at the cross and be reminded of this every day!
