A New Heart, Forgiven, and Forgiving

"So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses." (Matthew 18: 35)

 Jesus gave the parable of the unmerciful steward before He died on the Cross, where as God in the form of a man still under law, He was bringing the Law back to its ultimate standard, one which no one could ever fulfiill. First of all, Jesus says that we must forgive everyone "from the heart", yet man before he is saved, man has only a wicked heart:

"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" (Jeremiah 17: 9)

Yet God promised to His people then, and to the world now, that He would give us a new heart:

"And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh:" (Ezekiel 11: 19)

We receive this Spirit by faith in the Finished Work of Jesus Christ, who then writes in our hearts and mind God's laws of life and liberty:

"For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:

"And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.

"For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more." (Hebrews 8: 10-12)

Now, we are called to forgive others because we have been forgiven, not in order to be forgiven:

"And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you." (Ephesians 4: 32)

and

"Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye." (Colossians 3: 13)

Because we have received full of the Good News, let us renew our minds to the truth of eternal redemption in Christ, and thus as full forgiven in Christ, we can forgive others!