Receiving Forgiveness from Others
Living as a forgiven child of God, truly free from past sins.
Head
A part of the heart softening process involves a recognition that despite our sin we can still be forgiven. In the midst of our children’s emotional heart wrestling, they are likely also to be thinking through and arguing with themselves and us about their worthiness to receive forgiveness. What’s interesting is that perhaps the first honest answer to a question about their worthiness to be forgiven is that they are not. None of us are truly worthy. We are not worthy of Christ’s forgiveness of us and in turn, the sin against one another is not really something we can on our own remove. We, they, don’t deserve to be forgiven.
Now I know that this might sound harsh, but I believe that this is important to acknowledge this in an age-appropriate way. Romans 3:23-24 and Ephesians 2:1-6 are key verses of the Reformation and for our understanding of how undeserving we all truly are to receive forgiveness. Paul notes in his letter to the church at Ephesus that
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 2:1-6)
It is not that we are sick in our sins or severely wounded, but rather that we are truly dead in our sin. Dead people do not heal themselves. They do not fix what is wrong with them. As we grapple with explaining our worthiness to receive forgiveness because of our sin, it is honest and important to explain the reality that since we are dead in our sin, we are in and of ourselves beyond hope.
We need to help our children first come to grips with the reality as Paul explained it to the church in Rome stating that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins” (Romans 3:23-24). Notice that the solution for our sins in both cases is an outside force. God must enter into the picture and bring us out to death. God needs to act by bringing in the offer of forgiveness when we lack any claim to deserving to be forgiven.
The reality is that there is no precondition required of us in order to be ready or deserve to receive forgiveness. God’s grace is just that, grace, freely given. By definition, that means that we do not deserve to receive. So we acknowledge that reality and then move from that point to a discussion about the love of God that motivates Him to forgive regardless of our being dead in sin. This same motivation then grows within followers of Christ empowering them to respond in kind to others and offer forgiveness to others who don’t deserve to receive.
As has been mentioned already this is where our modeling comes in. Our kids are able to see our forgiveness in action. As they mature, they can grow in their understanding that our love for them motivates our forgiveness more than their deserving of that forgiveness. Applying this insight to receiving forgiveness generally can help our children to think through how it is that this forgiveness is offered and grow in both their appreciation of the free gift of forgiveness from God others as well as from others.
This is distinguished from the feeling of being guilty, as more of an intellectual (even if at an immature level) internal argument against it being right to even offer forgiveness to those who don’t deserve it. Where the emotions of the heart are dealt with through the reassurance of the love of God and the love of others, this argument of the head against receiving forgiveness from others is overcome when we help our children to accept that no amount of deserving is required or even possible, but that this same love motivates forgives despite our current condition.
