continuing in forgiveness

St Gregory the Great talks about being forgiven today in A Year with the Church Fathers. He says that before this leader named Marcellus could be back in the pope's good favor (Gregory himself was pope at the time), he needed to repent of his sins and find forgiveness from God first.

This points to several truths for our lives today. We're probably not trying to get back into a pope's good graces. But we might be trying to make things right with a friend or family member. And we find the same truth there as with Marcellus and Pope Gregory. Before we can fix things with our brother, we need to get things right with God. Now, you might remember the verse that says if you are offering a sacrifice, and remember your brother has something against you, go and fix things with him before you complete your sacrifice. This seems to contradict the idea of getting things right with God first.

But what we find is that getting our hearts right with God (which leads us to want to make that sacrifice in the first place) is primary, and leads to both of the other things. When we seek Him first, and put His kingdom above all other things, it then allows us to be in the right frame of mind to reestablish our relationships with other people. AND it allows us to come to Him with a worthy sacrifice. Today, that means many things, including our offering or tithe. God isn't going to be happy with us giving Him money to buy our way out of guilt or sin. But if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

And He will continue forgiving us as long as we keep coming back. You remember, I'm sure, the time that Jesus told His disciples to forgive people not 7 times, but 70 times 7. That means once you've forgiven someone 490 times, you can then stop forgiving them.

Just kidding.

And if He tells us to just keep forgiving people who wrong US, don't you think He's going to keep forgiving us when we wrong Him? As long as we don't give up, and we keep coming back to Him, He will continue to help us become the person He created us to be.

God, thank You for teaching us about forgiveness.