The Cross – A Costly Gift

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I’ve started this section with a picture of the cross to show the source of true forgiveness. I remember being struck for the first time with the simple truth that a gift is always free and without cost to the one who receives it but the cost of the gift is always paid by the giver. God’s forgiveness to us is a free gift but the cost was great – he paid it himself in the person and sacrificial death of Jesus.

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Often forgiveness is the gateway to healing. Let's look at a definition of forgiveness:

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‘To freely pardon, remit or cancel a debt, and to forego the demand for judgement or revenge against someone who has wronged you or another person.’

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As I write about giving the costly gift of forgiveness to those who have hurt us I need to say that it is still something that I can personally struggle with.

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Why should we forgive?

That’s a very important question. We need to forgive because we all are in need of forgiveness from God and if we are Christians we have actually been forgiven by him and he commands us to extend the same mercy to those who have sinned against us.

Because God has forgiven us we cannot justify refusing to extend that mercy to those who have wronged us. In fact, Jesus taught this in his teaching about prayer and emphasised it in his parable of the unmerciful servant. Refusing to forgive those who have sinned against us blocks God from forgiving our sins.

 

We’re going to look at four areas where we need to give or receive forgiveness. The first area that we need to remind ourselves of is our personal need of God’s forgiveness.

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Our need of God’s Forgiveness

In God’s word, in the first chapter of Genesis we read how on the sixth day of creation God created Adam and Eve in his image and he blessed them – he was very pleased with them – he was pleased that Adam was male and he was pleased that Eve was female.

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'So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.' (Genesis 1:27)

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Just to mention, in passing, that right at the beginning of creation God set his pattern for human sexuality and marriage and no amount of decrees or declarations by kings, presidents, prime ministers, prominent church leaders or well known worship leaders will persuade him to bless any alternatives to his design. That may be a hard but significant truth for someone reading this today. I speak it in love because I know from personal experience that God is gentle and compassionate and can heal our identities when they are broken and confused.

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We saw in section 3a (Who is on the throne?) how in those first few chapters of Genesis, mankind became separated from God through the sin of the first human beings, Adam and Eve.