Thankfully, we today are not under Israel’s “Law” and what Jesus told Israel was the requirement in order for them to receive forgiveness. Jesus told His Israelite audience that they had to forgive FIRST in order to be forgiven.

For if ye forgive men their trespasses, [then] your heavenly Father will also forgive you:” (Matthew 6:14 (KJV)

But now, for us today under the Pauline program of “the dispensation of the grace of God” there is no pre-requisite requirement except to “believe on the Lord Jesus Christ” to be forgiven of ALL sin, past, present and future.

    13  And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having [already] forgiven you ALL trespasses; Colossians 2:13 (KJV)

When asking for forgiveness, many say “Can you find it in your heart to forgive me?” But to paraphrase an old saying, they’re asking others to look for forgiveness in all the wrong places! For “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? (Jeremiah 17:9 (KJV)

Any forgiveness that someone may find in the world of lost, deceived, self-seeking souls is likely to come with conditions or strings attached… not extended ‘freely.’ That would not be forgiving “freely” as God has forgiven us.  Sadly, most religion to this day still promote Jesus’ way of conditional forgiveness that He laid upon the Jews of His day.

If you are finding it difficult to forgive someone, rather than trying to find it in your heart, you can find it in God’s “grace” that he has ‘freely’ extended to all of us. ‘Grace’ is free, undeserved favor extended to another.

God’s grace, (i.e., free gift) came to us in the form of His forgiveness … offered to us ‘freely,’ or it could not   then be called “grace.”

“And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even AS God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you” (Eph. 4:32)

Here above “as God” means, ‘in the same way that God forgave our sins’ which was by grace, ‘freely extended.’ We were totally forgiven by God “freely,” apart from our effort in any way of good works, vows, or promises.

Perhaps you’re thinking, “But, you don’t know how this person offended me.” That’s true, I don’t. But was it more than how your sins offended God? Yet He forgave All of your sins by His grace, and now asks you to forgive others by His grace that was imparted to you in the person of “the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” who indwells your spirit as your new identity.

The fact is that our Holy God was fully “satisfied” with the payment Christ made on the cross for our sins and that of every offender (Isa. 53:11). He has forgiven all of us for our unfair, uncaring, unloving, and evil deeds.

So, if you fail to forgive another freely by God’s grace, that means your standards are higher than God’s.

So, let’s not be like the world of lost souls, looking for forgiveness in all the wrong places. If anyone’s sins have “abounded” against you, let God’s grace “much more abound” (Rom. 5:20), even as it did when God forgave you. We should “Receive not the grace of God in vain” (2 Cor. 6:1). Let God’s grace abound in your life …toward… others in the form of forgiveness and acceptance.

Thanks to God’s forgiveness, which is provided to us by His grace that was made possible through Jesus Christ paying our ‘sin-debt payment,’ we can now forgive others as His grace believers.