What is forgiveness?
Here's the answer:
Forgiveness is what happens when you’re not mad at another person anymore for something they did to you.
The Bible talks a lot about God’s forgiveness. One of the best examples is in a story Jesus told His followers to illustrate God’s forgiveness (if you want to read this story for yourself, you can find it in Luke 15). The story is about a man who had two sons. One of the man’s sons wasn't very thankful and didn't appreciate his father’s love for him. So the son decided to go away. His father gave him money and let him go. After a while, the son spent all the money and did lots of bad things. He was sad and felt bad for leaving his father. He realized that he missed his father and decided to go home and ask his father to take him back.
The father had every reason to be angry with his son for leaving, doing bad things, and wasting all the money, right? But in the story, when the father saw his son coming home, he ran to him and hugged him and welcomed him back! That’s forgiveness. And God forgives us in the same way!
The whole Bible is a collection of stories about how God forgives people who come to Him and are sorry for their sins. In fact, God sent His Son, Jesus, to die for our sins so we could have a way to be forgiven.
God wants us to follow His example and forgive too. We can show God we’re thankful for His forgiveness by forgiving others—even if they never say sorry!
Bible Truth
"But God is faithful and fair. If we admit that we have sinned, he will forgive us our sins. He will forgive every wrong thing we have done. He will make us pure" (1 John 1:9).
"Be kind and tender to one another. Forgive each other, just as God forgave you because of what Christ has done" (Ephesians 4:32).
