How do you owe?

When I think about Easter, I think particularly about forgiveness. I guess that's why to me Easter is more important than Christmas. I mean Jesus coming to Earth is important, but if he didn't do what he did at Easter it'd be all pretty useless. And what he did in the end was to forgive, you, me, and everybody for all our trespasses from the first day we knew how. He came to die, he came to save, he came to forgive.

Matthew 6:12 Jesus says to pray that God

Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

It says, forgive others in the same way God forgave you. That leads to a question, do you know the ways in which you've been forgiven? Sometimes I imagine what it'd be like if God forgave us the way we forgive others. He'd be like "Ken, I know you coveted that Subaru Impreza just now. But it's ok, I forgive you. I won't strike you down with lightening when you walk outside this afternoon. But, um, I don't think I want to see you in my heaven anymore, ever." Sound silly right? But isn't that the way most of us forgive? How many times have you heard someone, or even yourself, say that "I forgive her, but I don't ever want to see her again", have you seen people say "I've let that go", but goto great lengths to avoid that person? We train ourselves to quickly dismiss the sin, but never bring ourselves to accept the sinner.

But that's not the way God forgives us is it? He hated our sin, but wanted to see us, to talk to us, to be with us, forever. He couldn't just let our sin slide, to cast a blind eye at it, but he wanted to accept us so badly that he sent his son to die so that our sins, our debts, would be accounted for. That is how God forgave you.

Forgive others in the same way God forgave you. How do you forgive people? Are there people that you have forgiven but have not accepted? Are there hurts in your past, that even though now you've chosen not to talk about it, you still hold that person in the darkest parts of your heart? Do you realize that whatever others have done to you, you've already done worse to God, and yet God chose to die for you, to accept you, and that he asks you to do the same?

Before even that, are you struggling to let go of certain hurts? Luke 7:47 says

He who has been forgiven little loves little.

I use to struggle with loving others, forgiving others, because I never truly knew in my heart what Christ did for me, but at men's retreat last year God broke my heart for what broke his in my life, as cliched as that sounds. Ask God to show you, in one overwhelming instant, everything in your life that was put on him at the cross. Because nothing else you do this afternoon makes any sense until you freely receive, and freely give, God's forgiveness. Easter is in 2 weeks. If you haven't fully accepted, fully realized that forgiveness, ask God to show you. If you haven't fully given, fully poured out, that forgiveness, confess, repent before God, and go do something before He rises 3 days later.