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1 Peter 4:8 - And above all things have fervent love for one another, for “love will cover a multitude of sins.”

Forgiveness is at the very core of everything that is taught in the Bible.

Forgiveness is one of the very reasons that Jesus came. All of us are in need of forgiveness from God.

The Great news is that God desires to forgive and He made a way for us to be forgiven through the sacrifice of His son Jesus Christ.

1 John 1:7-9 - But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. ⁸ If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. ⁹ If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

All of us have sinned against God. Every one of us. Yet if we confess our sins. Admit them, own up to them and repent of them. We are told that God will Forgive us and Cleanse us.

This is a part of what God does that is so amazing. The Blood of Jesus cleanses us of all unrighteousness.

The power of the Blood is that it heals, disinfects and covers. When the blood covers what was there is now gone. It is swallowed up by the blood. It is as if the sin never existed.

As a Christian that ought to get you shouting. Thank God for the healing, covering power of the blood of Jesus.

All of us in life have experienced the hurt and pain that other people have caused us. Some of those pains are so deep that they have been altering life.

Some of the hurt that we have experienced has been the consistent on-going abuse or behaviors that people either know that they are doing or are so uncaring they don’t even notice the pain they cause.

Every time we forgive others for the hurt and pain that they have caused us we are being like Jesus. We are becoming part of the great cover-up.

For the Christian Forgiveness is not optional. Forgiveness is a mandate. When someone offends us and hurts us, we are to forgive.

Ephesians 4:32 - And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.

Forgiveness is the ultimate kindness.

We are to forgive just like Christ has forgiven us.

Forgiveness means – to set free; to let go; to release; to discharge or liberate completely.

We need to love enough to forgive.

If you and I are not willing to forgive someone that means that we really do not love them.

1 Peter 4:8 - And above all things have fervent love for one another, for “love will cover a multitude of sins.”

It is love that will cover a multitude of sins.

Remember Jesus calls us to love even our enemies. An enemy is someone who has set themselves against you and purposefully done wicked and unkind things to you.

It is love that led Jesus to go to the cross in order that we could be forgiven.

It will be that same kind of love that causes us to forgive those who have hurt us.

~ C.S. Lewis – Everyone thinks forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive.

Corrie Ten Boom whose family hid Jewish families during the Nazi occupation was taken to Ravensbrück where all of her family died in that concentration camp. One day when giving her testimony in a church a man came up afterwards and confessed that he had been a guard there. He said that since that time he had become a Christian and he offered her his hand and asked her to forgive him. – This man had been a monster. He had inflicted all kinds of pain that caused pain and misery. In that moment God gave her the strength to forgive him.

~ William Blake – The glory of Christianity is to conquer by forgiveness.

Peter tells us that it is fervent love that will cover over a multitude of sins.

Proverbs 19:11(AMP) - Good sense and discretion make a man slow to anger, And it is his honor and glory to overlook a transgression or an offense [without seeking revenge and harboring resentment].

It takes being the bigger person to overlook and to cover over hurt and offenses.

This is not glossing it over. It is not pretending that it never happened. It is purposefully allowing the mercy and blood of Jesus into our hurt and pain. It is allowing it to heal us and us loving someone enough to release them from what they owe us because they caused us pain.

Peter says that we are to have fervent love. For us the word fervent carries the idea of being hot. Of having a passion. We think of it in terms of intensity.

The word fervent actually means the willingness to be stretched out.

Fervent love stretches us beyond our normal capacity.

All of us who will choose to love and forgive, will at some point, be stretched beyond our capacity to forgive someone in our own strength. There are people that are easy to forgive and to release and then there are people that have caused us or someone we love such pain that it is not in our desire or strength to want to.

Covering an offense is not based on the size of the offense but on the size of our heart.

Proverbs 10:12 (AMP) - Hatred stirs up strife, But love covers and overwhelms all transgressions [forgiving and overlooking another’s faults].

Many of us fear that if we forgive that we will get hurt again. The truth is that you and I are going to get hurt again by others regardless of what we do.

Our choice is to continue to live in unforgiveness or to choose the greater way of love.

To become a part of the Great Cover-Up we must become vulnerable enough to forgive.

When Jesus forgave us on the cross, He hung there naked for all to see.

Nothing feels quite as vulnerable as forgiving those who have hurt us.

~ C.S. Lewis – To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket – safe, dark, motionless, airless- it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.

To love is to be vulnerable. When you love someone, you trust them enough to allow them close enough to hurt you or to reject you. Anyone who has been married knows the vulnerability of asking the other one to marry you.

When you forgive you are trusting God to protect you and to heal you from what others have done to you.

Many people who walk and live in unforgiveness do so because they do not want to be hurt again.

Unforgiveness is the result of a great deal of the inner turmoil that many of us struggle with.

I have also found that unforgiveness is the reason that many people who desire healing are not healed. It may be actual physical sickness or the emotional pain that afflicts so many.

James 5:16 - Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.

There is that word fervent again. That willingness to be stretched in prayer. That stretching of God that deals with forgiveness.

~ Someone needs to hear this- you have been hurt. You have been through a great deal of pain and suffering. You need to know that unforgiveness is sin. You have been sinned against but your unforgiveness is a sin against God not just the other person.

We need people that will pray with us, fervently love us and stretch us until we are able to forgive those who have sinned against us. Remember sin means to fall short. People who have missed the mark in our loves and not measure up.

We need people in our lives who will pray with us and stretch us and stretch themselves in prayer until we are forgiven and until we forgive until we can come to the place where we can be healed.

My friend God desires that for you today. Sometimes the stretching of forgiveness hurts but it will promote healing.

Love understands enough to forgive.

Forgiveness means that we are understanding even when the people we are forgiving have no understanding.

I have found that people who hurt others have no understanding of the damage that they have done to us.

When Jesus was on the cross, He uttered words of forgiveness that are to me, utterly incredible.

Luke 23:34 - Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.” And they divided His garments and cast lots.

The people that we forgive are completely lacking in self-awareness.

As He is on the cross in intense suffering. The life literally draining out of his body, He forgives us and those who have physically tortured Him and nailed Him to the cross. 

We are all familiar with the first part of this verse… Father forgive them, for they do not know what they do. - But we leave out the rest of the verse. And they divided His garments and cast lots.

These soldiers had absolutely no self-awareness whatsoever. Jesus was forgiving them and they are gambling for His clothes blissfully unaware that Jesus was dying for their sins.

These soldiers had no understanding but Jesus know exactly what He was doing.

When we forgive so will we. Even if the people we are forgiving are unaware of the significance of what we are doing.

This issue of forgiveness is vital for all people but especially for those of us who are Christians.

I want to be a part of the great cover up that Jesus started.

May God bless you, stretch you and give you freedom.

Rember that you are loved,
Pastor Marvin & Dawn

Image by SAIYED IRFAN A from Pixabay