By: Justin Dillenschneider, Director of Student Life
Week of January 10th, 2022
Forgiveness can be defined as the decision to stop feeling anger toward someone who has done something wrong, to stop blaming someone or to stop requiring payment of what is owed. As I am writing this, many followers of Christ around the world are celebrating the Baptism of Jesus. The crux of the Christian faith lies in the person and work of Jesus and his sacrificial death on the cross. Rather than crush us with the weight of the law or allow us to go on sinning and destroying ourselves, God provided a perfectly just sacrifice for sin. While we were still dead in our sins, God sent His only son to earth as a baby who would grow in wisdom and stature, living a wholly perfect life and dying a death He did not deserve to pay the price for our sins. What amazing news! As those who have received undeserved forgiveness, we are to love and forgive those who have sinned against us as well as an image and likeness to the world of the one who has forgiven us.
Continue contemplating forgiveness by looking at this week’s scripture readings from
Colossians 3:12-15 CSB
“12 Therefore, as God’s chosen ones, holy and dearly loved, put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and forgiving one another if anyone has a grievance against another. Just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you are also to forgive. 14 Above all, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. 15 And let the peace of Christ, to which you were also called in one body, rule your hearts. And be thankful.”
We want to encourage you to have a conversation this week about the virtue of forgiveness.
Consider these discussion prompts together:
- What tempts you to become legalistic?
- Where have you seen people fall into apathy? Where are you tempted to do so?
- What are some ways you see Christ correcting legalistic or overly lenient people in Scripture?
- How do we see the apostles and the early church modeling and celebrating forgiveness?
Hymn to Sing Together: Nothing But the Blood