Let us pray: Our dear Father, we thank You for another privilege given to us by You to gather at Your feet and learn principles that will set our lives and homes right. And we ask that You will strengthen our hearts to embrace the truth You will bring to us and to always act accordingly, for the praise of Your name. For we have prayed in Jesus’ name. Amen.
We are still looking at some of the things we must give ourselves to doing in our homes and to our homes, if we want them to be built up in love and established in prosperity. And as we have severally mentioned, the doing of these things may be hard work. But it is not hard work that we cannot handle or that is without benefit.
We can handle the things we have been talking about because God is able to equip us with the ability to handle them. And we can benefit from them because God wants us to benefit from them and is also able to make us benefit from them. It is, then, up to us to begin to labour to do them by the strength and wisdom of His Spirit. And as we do so, great will be our reward.
Now, another thing we must be given to doing in order to establish our homes in love, joy, peace, and prosperity has to do with forgiving one another. Why do we need to be given to forgiving each other in our home? The reason is that none of us is perfect in conduct, even if we are believers in Christ Jesus.
As believers in Christ Jesus, God has made us perfect in Christ Jesus. The Bible says: “Because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.” (Heb. 10:14 NIV)
Did you see that? We have been made perfect forever by God Himself, that is, in Christ Jesus. But then, we all know that there is none of us who always exhibits perfection in what we say and do. Why is that so? Or does it mean that God is lying to us when He says that He has made us perfect forever?
God is not lying to us when He says that He has made us perfect forever. He never lies. It is, in fact, impossible for Him to lie. However, when He says that He has made us perfect forever, He is talking about our spirits, our recreated spirits. These are what He has made perfect forever before Him.
But our minds and our bodies have not been made perfect by God. Therefore, they can fall short of expectations. Our reasoning can fall short of expectations and does so from time to time. Also, our bodies can fall short of expectations, failing us through all forms of weakness. That being the case, we can fail ourselves. I mean that we can fall short of our own expectations.
Now since we can fall short of our own expectations, it is natural to expect that we can fall short of the expectations of others as well. Yes, we can disappoint others. We can fail them. And where that is the case, we will need their forgiveness, if our relationship and fellowship with them will remain intact and continue to mutually bless us.
But will those we hurt or disappoint in this manner forgive us readily and wholeheartedly? It depends on their understanding of the will of God in matters requiring forgiveness.
In any case, if our homes will be what they are meant to be, we have to be ready to willingly and wholeheartedly forgive our spouses all the time they require it. Otherwise, such homes will not be what they are meant to be—homes of love, joy, peace, and prosperity.
Now someone may ask, “Can I actually forgive my spouse for what they have done to me? Do you even grasp the magnitude of what they have done to me?” I may never be able to grasp the magnitude of what your spouse has done to you. But I can grasp the fact that God will never ask us to do something that we are incapable of doing. In other words, God will never ask us to forgive others if we are incapable of doing so.
Why is God asking us to forgive those who have hurt or offended us? First, the reason is that we can do so. Remember that we were originally created in the image and likeness of God, even though we fell into sin. Then, having come to the Lord Jesus Christ, we have been recreated to be like Him again in true righteousness and holiness. And since God our Creator and Father is a forgiving person, we too are forgiving people.
So, we can forgive anyone who has hurt or offended us, if we want to. If we do not forgive anyone their sins against us, then it will not be because we cannot do so but because we will not do so. That is just it. In every case where people have refused to forgive others, the reason is not that they cannot. The reason is that they will not. They just don’t want to. They prefer to retain the feeling of holding something against the person to the feeling of being at peace with the person.
Yes, there are times that people may not be repentant. But that should not stop us from forgiving them. It may only prevent us from treating them the way we used to treat them or giving them access into our lives and affairs as we used to.
So, even if your spouse is unrepentant and is still doing what is painful to you, forgive them. Forgive them because you can do so as one bearing the image and likeness of God. Their unrepentance may not make it possible for you to continue to do some things together with them or to do some things for them. But your forgiveness will prepare the ground for you to be able to embrace fully again, if they should eventually repent.
Another reason we are to forgive others, including our spouses, is that we too have been forgiven by God. The Bible says:
“Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” (Eph. 4:32 NIV)
“Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.” (Col. 3:13 NIV)
Did you see that? We are to forgive others who hurt us because God forgave us too. All of us were sinners. All of us fell short of the glory of God and deserve nothing but eternal death. But in His mercy, He paid the price for our sins and forgave us.
The question, then, is, “Have we received God’s forgiveness?” If we have received His forgiveness for all our sins, which are many, why should we not forgive others who have sinned against us?
By the way, many of us have not stopped sinning against God. Every day we still do things that are unpleasant to Him. Yet each time we return to Him for forgiveness, we expect Him to forgive us. We expect Him to forgive us because He has said that He would do so, as long as we would acknowledge our sins before Him. (Cf. 1 John 1:8-9)
Since we, then, are continually receiving forgiveness for our sins from God, why should it be hard for us to forgive others who have sinned against us, even if they are not our spouses? When our Lord Jesus was asked by a disciple about the number of times to forgive an erring brother or sister, He told them to forgive the person even if they offended them for as much as seventy times seven times a day. (Cf. Matt. 18:21-22)
Now it will certainly take a crook or good-for-nothing person to offend you ten or twenty times a day, not to talk of four hundred and ninety times a day. And you too will have to be a very difficult-to-please person to settle down to count someone’s offences against you up to ten or twenty times a day.
In any case, the point being made by our Lord in saying that is that forgiveness to others is something that we should be ready and willing to give all the time. And that is because, as I already said, God our Father Himself is ready and willing to forgive us all the time.
So, each time you want to hold back forgiveness from anyone, including your spouse, remind yourself of the fact that God is never holding back forgiveness from you. Rather, He is always willing and ready to forgive you. Why? He does not want your relationship and fellowship with Him to be ruined but to remain healthy, loving, and beneficial to you.
In like manner, if we want our relationship and fellowship with our spouses to remain healthy, loving, and beneficial, we have to be willing and ready to forgive one another every time there is a need for it. This, of course, does not mean we are to keep intentionally hurting our spouses, simply because we know that they are forgiving. If we are doing that, we are not showing that we love those spouses of ours at all. And at some point, even if they forgive us, our relationship and fellowship with them may not be healed or restored.
We will continue from here in our next hangout. I pray that God will strengthen our hearts to use forgiveness to heal our homes wherever we need to do so, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Thank you, sirs and madams.