Forgiveness

In history not many traitors have been forgiven.  One who was forgiven was Lambert Simnel and Henry VII sent him into the Palace kitchens to wash dishes.  When God forgives us, he takes us back and treats us as loyal sons and daughters.  This is because God loves us so much and because Jesus Christ, his Son and our Saviour, suffered on the Cross in order to win forgiveness for us.  If it were not for God’s love and forgiveness we should be left in the Devil’s power for him to do as he liked with us, and nothing could be worse than that.

Being sorry

What do we have to do, then, to make it possible for our sins to be forgiven?  First of all we have to be sorry for the wrong we have done.  If a friend of yours had done something nasty to you and was not a bit sorry about it, your just saying “I forgive you” would not put things right.  In order to be friends again he or she would have to be sorry, otherwise it would not make any difference.

Owning up

So we must first be sorry, and when we are sorry we must confess or own up to it; just as your friend would say to you, “I’m sorry I did so and so to you”.  Until people say that, you know they are not sorry.  If we are sorry we say so; if we are not sorry we don’t. 

Resolving not to do it again

Besides being sorry and saying we are sorry, we must also show we are sorry by making up our minds not to do the same thing again.  If your friend, whilst being forgiven by you in the morning, was thinking of doing the same nasty thing to you in the afternoon, he or she wouldn’t be sorry at all even though “sorry” had been said.  And when we have sinned against God, we can receive his forgiveness only if we truly resolve not to commit those sins again.