When we forgive others we reveal our belief in Christ's forgiveness.

Are you one of God's elect?

Col 3:12  Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering;

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

The elect of God.

The elect must PUT ON these things.  To believe the elect automatically possess all the attributes here would be a mistake. We have to put on these things, just as we put on the whole armor of God.  We aren't taking a physical helmet and sliding it on our heads as Christian, we are taking the salvation offered to us and making it a reality to us, letting it protect us. And we must put on bowels of mercies, we have to be merciful. We have to put on kindness, we must be kind.  If we NATURALLY possessed these things would we have to put them on? NO.  We wouldn't have to be told to put them on if they were on us. We have to make an EFFORT to put these things, a conscious effort and we make a HUGE mistake believing that they should come naturally to us. That's a trap Satan loves to use with us. He'll waste no time getting us to believe that because we weren't instantly merciful we aren't truly Christ's. The same goes for being kind.  When we display something less than kindness and then use that to make us believe we aren't Christ's we are hurting our walk with Christ. We have to recognize that we must PUT on the mercy, PUT on the kindness and if we aren't putting it on, if we aren't kind or merciful in some instance we need to bow before Christ and seek forgiveness for the behavior that isn't that of elect of God.  We must comprehend we are NOT perfect but seek Christ's perfection, understanding we must ALWAYS seek Christ's perfection.  We need to be longsuffering, but our impatience proves that often impossible, doesn't it? We would despair over our impatience, our lack of humbleness, our not being meek if we seek these things as if they are of our own making. We must seek Christ first and know these things come from Christ, and put them on as Christ would have us put them on.

Forbearing one another, forgiving one another- if any man have a quarrel against ANY- even as CHRIST forgave you, so also do ye…..

We must forgive as we are forgiven and this is something we cannot ever afford to forget this, not ever.

When we are tempted to hold a grudge, when we are tempted to hold fast to the hurt that someone has caused us we are in a way asking Christ to do the same- to hold a grudge against us, to hold fast to the hurt we've cause Him, and that's the LAST thing we really want to do, in fact Christ CAN'T do that without us letting Him by us NOT forgiving others.  When we forgive others we reveal our belief in Christ's forgiveness.

When we choose not to forgive others we are revealing our disbelief in Christ's forgiveness of us- this is truth.  Because if WE can be forgiven all our awful sins how dare we have the audacity to believe we shouldn't forgive others ALL their sins!

Truth!

Please Father, please help us to put on all the attributes Christ would have us put on because of HIS mercy, because of HIS forgiveness, because of HIS LOVE for us we would be HIS.

Amen.