To forgive

"Lord forgive them, they know not what they do"
The Lord knows our exact sins against Him, He knows our deepest motives, He is fully aware of our depravity, He sees into the heart of hearts, the very core of our being, and He still loves us and forgives us of everything. This is truly amazing.

I think, "oh, I can forgive this person for what they've said and done to me." But, I don't really know the heart of the man nor their deepest motive, nor the abominations they harbour in their thought life against me. I might be able to find it somewhat easy to let them off the hook and say, "I forgive you," with ignorance of the many unknown angles, and secrets of their heart. But, if I truly did know exactly what they thought and how evil their heart and words were toward me, could I bear it, could I let it go, could I truly forgive? Well, here we have it, our Lord knows all this information and He still chooses to forgive all of our willful, rebellious sinning. He understands clearly just how bad we really are and yet He remembers the sin of our confession no more. He washes us clean, makes our hearts as white as snow, though we don't deserve it.

Can we in turn, like Jesus or even Stephen the first martyr of the church, say to the Lord, "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do," while they are gnashing at us with their teeth, while they mean us ill intent? May we have, with our incomplete knowledge of any given situation, His true heart of forgiveness towards the one(s) who have offended us.

John