Minister's Message June 09
Forgiveness
It was reported that Leonardo Da Vinci had great difficulty in painting the face of Jesus in his Last Supper masterpiece. All the twelve disciples were easily completed. Over months of confusion and frustration he gradually understood why there was a blockage. He had a great enemy in a fellow artist, they were always arguing and bitter resentment grew between them. Da Vinci refused to forgive him. Da Vinci had used the features of his enemy’s face to paint Judas Iscariot! He changed the face, made peace with his fellow artist and the face of Jesus was quickly painted.
Many people are governed by guilt or locked into loneliness because they will not forgive someone, or they hold grudges, and allow anger to ferment their lives.
We all need to forgive, and be forgiven. Thomas Fuller said ‘He that cannot forgive others breaks the bridge over which he must pass himself – for every man needs to be forgiven.’
There are 3 kinds of forgiveness:-
- our forgiveness of those who have wronged us
- forgiveness of ourselves
- most important – to find forgiveness from God
In the Lord’s Prayer we pray ‘forgive us our debts as we forgive those …’ the word debts in translated as ‘transgressions’ or the word ‘sins’. However, the word debt is a good one, for we understand in monetary terms, what a heavy burden debt can be.
If every sin we committed was valued at a £1 we would be millions of £’s in debt! Jesus came to pay a debt He didn’t owe, because we owed a debt we couldn’t pay.
Finding forgiveness firstly from God enables us to forgive ourselves, as well as others.
I invite you to read Mathew chapter 18 verses 21 to 35 from the Bible.
June 2009
