We are more likely to forgive others when we realize how selfish and hurtful we ourselves have been. All of us say and do things we later wish we could take back. The discipline of seeking and accepting forgiveness from others frees us from false pride and the need to pretend we are perfect. To receive someone’s forgiveness motivates and empowers us to be similarly generous with those who need our compassion and mercy.
Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. (Colossians 3:13 NLT)
The weather turns crisp, and we move into the season of thanksgiving, mindful of our blessings. Paul reminds us in the above passage that we are not blessed for ourselves alone. We are meant to share with others the light and grace we receive from God. In the case of personal offenses, Paul says, we are to forgive as the Lord has so graciously forgiven us.
So David and Abishai went right into Saul’s camp and found him asleep, with his spear stuck in the ground beside his head.
Years before, God had chosen David to succeed Saul, Israel’s first king. Aware of his special anointing, David nevertheless continued to serve King Saul and to remain a loyal subject and son-in-law. Meanwhile, Saul—jealous, vindictive, and likely suffering from mental illness—made repeated attempts on David’s life, forcing David to flee from his wife and home to live in exile for many years. Now David and Abishai, a commander in David’s army, come upon a sleeping Saul.
But Moses said to God… “Please forgive the wrongdoing of this people out of the extravagance of your loyal love just as all along, from the time they left Egypt, you have been forgiving this people.”
In all the years since the Israelites were freed from bondage in Egypt, they seem to have learned nothing about God’s grace and power. Now on the brink of entering the Promised Land, they grumble about their hardships and threaten to abandon the quest and return to slavery in Egypt.
There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. And now that you belong to Christ, you are the true children of Abraham. You are his heirs, and God’s promise to Abraham belongs to you.
God’s Old Testament covenant with Abraham was twofold. There was the material promise that Abraham would father a great nation and inherit property in the land of Canaan. More important for us was the spiritual promise that through Abraham’s descendants all the nations of the world would be blessed.
