Speaker: Dr. Harold J. Sala | Series: Guidelines For Living | Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. Ephesians 4:32

Long ago Moses told us that we were created in the image of God, but with the fall, it’s certain that some of those gracious, compassionate attributes seemed to get lost. For example, this issue of forgiving someone who has hurt you. “Forgive your enemy,” someone quipped, “when you see him going down the steps of the gallows!”

Forgiveness doesn’t seem to be natural. It’s not—it’s supernatural. When someone hurts you, the immediate reaction is to do the same thing to him, except torque up the payback. Give him a bit more than he gave you.

I thought of that when I took two of my grandsons to a child’s amusement part known as Legoland. My wife had one of the twins in a little boat that went around a track, and I had the other. While the little boats were free floating and not moving very fast, you could maneuver them and bang into the side or rear of another boat. As we rounded the corner, Carson, age 5, at the steering wheel cried out, “Now we got ‘em!” as he plowed into the side of the boat in front of us. But what was startling to me was the intensity in his voice that reminded me more of a CEO who had deftly knocked a hole into the sales force of his competitor. “Now we got ‘em!”

This morning I was reading of one of the kings of ancient Israel—a real rascal if ever there was one. Following the reign of a godly man by the name of Hezekiah, Manasseh who followed him put the nation in reverse, doing exactly what his predecessor had sought to abolish. Like what? First, he was flagrant in turning his back on God. Instead of worshipping the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as his fathers before him had done, he erected altars to Baal and Ashteroth—the gods of the fields and sexuality. He even practiced human sacrifice, offering his own sons—his own flesh and blood—to Molech, the god of fire, according to the pagans. He promoted sorcery, divination, mediums and witches. He destroyed the Word of God, which, of course, condemned his actions. He murdered his own people, possibly ordering Isaiah to be literally sawed in two.

Nice guy, this wayward son of a good king! Hey, we cry, “Hell can’t be too hot for that kind of a person! God, where is your judgment? Why do you allow this? Why not strike him dead, along with a few people with whom we have strong disagreements?” “Now we got ‘em!” we would cry along with my little grandson who already understands the taste of revenge.

But—are you ready for this?—this depraved, vile person who was worthy of the scrapheap, repented! Here is the record: “But while in deep distress, Manasseh sought the LORD his God and cried out humbly to the God of his ancestors. And when he prayed, the LORD listened to him and was moved by his request for help. So the LORD let Manasseh return to Jerusalem and to his kingdom. Manasseh had finally realized that the LORD alone is God!” (2 Chronicles 33:12-13, NLT).

Can you believe that? God actually forgave him. I suspect that when John Newton got to heaven, he teamed up with old Manasseh and they sang a duet, “Amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like.”

God forgave Manasseh. He will forgive you also, and He expects you to do the same of those who wrong you. Forgiveness is not natural; it’s supernatural. God will give you the grace to do what He does. Try Him. It saves having to say, “Now we got ‘em!” It lets God keep score. He’s better at it than we are, you know.

Resource reading: Ephesians 4.