Forgive as You Are Forgiven

Paul does not ease into this topic. He begins with a list, bitterness, wrath, anger, clamour, evil speaking, malice, and tells the Ephesians to put all of it away (Ephesians 4:31). For a first-time reader, "put away" is a strong phrase. It means to strip something off, the way you would pull off a coat. These things are not just bad habits to be managed; they are garments that do not belong on someone who has been clothed in Christ.

Then comes the alternative, and it is not simply "try harder to be nice." Paul writes: "And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you" (Ephesians 4:32). The standard is breathtaking. Not "forgive as you would want to be forgiven." Not "forgive when they deserve it." Forgive as God, for Christ's sake, has forgiven you. The measure of our forgiving is meant to be the measure of His.

Colossians adds a word that seasoned readers sometimes pass over too quickly: "Forbearing one another" (Colossians 3:13). Forbearance is the quiet cousin of forgiveness. Forgiveness deals with a wrong that has been committed. Forbearance is the daily patience that absorbs the friction of living alongside imperfect people, the small irritations, the repeated weaknesses, the ways people simply are. Both are required. Both are possible only because we are "elect of God, holy and beloved" (Colossians 3:12), people who have received an identity before we were asked to perform a duty.

Notice the order in both passages: who you are comes before what you do. You are chosen, holy, beloved, therefore put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering. God never asks us to manufacture forgiveness from nothing. He asks us to draw from what we have already been given.

If you are struggling to forgive someone today, the invitation is not to summon more willpower. It is to go deeper into your own belovedness, to sit with the reality that God, for Christ's sake, has forgiven you, and let that overflow.