But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness. 1st John 1:9
Asking for forgiveness from others involves risk. You see, when we ask others to forgive us for how we have hurt them, we do not know how they will respond. We can hope that they will offer us grace and extend forgiveness, but they might not. This may be true of the people in our lives, but it is not true of God. You see, when we ask God to forgive us, we do not have to wonder whether or not He will forgive. We can be 100% confident that He will forgive us every single time. That is the gracious, loving, and compassionate God we serve.
John, one of Jesus’ disciples, wrote about God’s never-ending forgiveness in 1st John chapter 1. He explained that every one of us has sinned in this passage of Scripture. There is no person on planet Earth who is sinless. Only Jesus was sinless. John wrote, “If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth” (verse 8). We have all sinned, and when we hide or ignore our sin, we are not deceiving anyone, only ourselves. As a result, concealing our sin is pointless. Next, John wrote, “But if we confess our sins to Him, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness” (verse 9). Notice that this verse does not say that “if we confess our sins to Him, He might be faithful and just to forgive us.” It confidently states that “He is faithful and just to forgive us.” His faithfulness to forgive is in His nature. As a result, every time we come to Him for forgiveness, we can be confident that He will forgive us.
Because we are His children, we represent God to the rest of the watching world. As a result, our call is to also extend forgiveness every single time someone comes to us to apologize for how they have hurt us, rather than holding on to bitterness. As we extend forgiveness every time someone offers an apology, we will represent our faithful, gracious, merciful God, who never questions whether He will forgive but offers forgiveness every single time.
Read Lamentations 3:22-23, a prayer praising God for His great faithfulness, mercy, and love. Write out a prayer of thanksgiving to God like the one you read in Lamentations. In your prayer, thank Him for His great faithfulness and forgiveness every single time you come to Him for forgiveness. Indeed, He is a faithful, forgiving, and merciful God. Ask Him to help you model His same grace and forgiveness today.
God, as I seek to model Your great forgiveness to everyone around me, use me…”
1st John 1:1-10
1We proclaim to you the one who existed from the beginning, whom we have heard and seen. We saw him with our own eyes and touched him with our own hands. He is the Word of life. 2 This one who is life itself was revealed to us, and we have seen him. And now we testify and proclaim to you that he is the one who is eternal life. He was with the Father, and then he was revealed to us. 3 We proclaim to you what we ourselves have actually seen and heard so that you may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. 4 We are writing these things so that you may fully share our joy.
5 This is the message we heard from Jesus and now declare to you: God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all. 6 So we are lying if we say we have fellowship with God but go on living in spiritual darkness; we are not practicing the truth. 7 But if we are living in the light, as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin.
8 If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth. 9 But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness. 10 If we claim we have not sinned, we are calling God a liar and showing that his word has no place in our hearts.
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