Forgiveness I ...

Wednesday, Oct 5, 2011. Forgiveness is a broad topic. It touches all parts of our life. When we live together with other humans, we will need to forgive rather soon, and we will need forgiveness as well - just since humans do things which are not perfect and every time we do something we should not have done, we need to be forgiven!

The Grand Line …

I would like to talk about forgiveness in a slightly broader framework. Clearly forgiveness is something which takes place between me and another human. Clearly it is very personal. But there is a much broader framework. It is about me and God. Also here, in the broader framework, forgiveness is a key topic!

What is the role of forgiveness between me and God? First of all, he is the creator. He has made the world, and he has filled everything with his purpose. Everything has been made good. But he also put freedom into his creation. True freedom means that things can go into different directions, and that there are choices which might not be the best choices. The choices we made in the past and the choices we do day by day bring the need for forgiveness.

I need to be forgiven for every single time where I hurt someone. I need to be forgiven for every time where I did wrong. I need to be forgiven for every wrong word I said, for every wrong action, even my thoughts are part of the universe, and even thoughts need forgiveness. The grand line is huge, it includes everything which is in the universe. All that violates God's surpassing justice, his love, his truth, his solidarity and the value he placed in every single human being. It includes the purpose he put into you and me … we violate it day by day, just by following things which do not match this value.

What Jesus Did …

Of course, God knows all what is going wrong. The biblical records confirm that he sees everything, the whole universe is like a crystal lake in front of him, our every emotion, our every idea, he knows it all.

And God thought about a way to redeem mankind. He thought about a way to forgive. He thought about a path to save and restore.

God's path is Jesus, his life, his death, his resurrection. He wanted to show to us that forgiveness needs to be complete. It needs a full death of the old ways and a full new life, a new creation. And he found a way to do it within us, through his Holy Spirit, by the life and death of Jesus. (Roland Potthast) ... more texts