Psalms 130:1-5 Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord. Lord, hear my voice: let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications. If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared. I wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope.
	We have stated, in our prior considerations, that the focus of our efforts and concerns, individually and corporately, needs to be completely centered in Christ. This is not a new message by any means, but it is a critical one that never loses vitality nor emphasis. It is imperative that we continue to encourage each other to look to Him in every aspect of our lives. There is no territory that is out of the scope of the Lord in which to work to glorify Himself in our lives. We are to be a living sacrifice, as we have discussed and experienced on many occasions. Everything in our beings is to be under the complete control of the Holy Spirit as He guides and teaches us and shows forth the life of Christ in us unto others.
	This may require further consideration as we continue this evening with the great reality of God’s effective and perfect forgiveness in our lives. Forgiveness has served to work permanently in making us completely acceptable to God by the Lord Jesus Christ, and is still active. It is not stagnant or static, just as God is not stagnant or static. Forgiveness is an attribute of God, a living expression of the very essence of God’s dynamic Love. As such, it continues to work mightily within us, in order to bring forth the glory of God on this earth. It should permeate our entire being, just as the Love of God should permeate us and the very life of Christ should be our life. This is all true in every spiritual sense already, because it is true of Christ living His life in us. There is that aspect, however, that requires that it be manifested livingly from within our essence unto this world as a testimony of the great Love of God given in Christ Jesus.
	What do we mean by this? Simply that our lives, right now, this instant, need to be so under the control of the Holy Spirit, that there is no choice to be made concerning His will in opposition to our will. There should be no issue of choosing His way or our way. We belong to Him, and as such, our life’s course is to please Him in every way. This is a hard concept, and an even more exacting manner of life. Gal. 2:20, once more comes into view, I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life that I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
	This is a recurring scripture in our considerations, yet it is so indicative of what needs to take place. We need to regard our lives as no longer our own. There are some who may not understand what this means. It is simply this, we have no rights any longer to make any decisions on our own, or to take offence at the actions of others. There is great freedom in this reality. It means that we no longer have to try to prove anything, or to regard the actions of others as aimed at us to our undoing. What we have to do is to reckon ourselves to be dead, so that Christ has all the freedom to manifest Himself through us with ever increasing clarity.
	As the Church, as His Body incorporated together on this earth, we should be expressing Him only to all of creation. The lives we now live, we live by Christ. This has great significance in terms of forgiveness. Remember, forgiveness is part of the essence of God. It is as much a part of us now that God indwells us through the Holy Spirit. Once again, let us be clear that I am not saying that we are to become gods unto ourselves, that we are to take on the characteristics of God in order to deify and glorify ourselves before man. Rather, our lives are to show forth the One Who now is the focal point of our beings. This is a fundamental shift in the operational locus of our lives. Until this is understood in practical terms, we may very well subscribe to the idea that we belong to the Lord, yet our decisions and our focal point of interest remain in terms of what is in our best interests. At this point, we can say all kinds of wonderful things about the beauty of a life lead by the Holy Spirit, as long as that does not mean that we have to give up the things we crave from this earth.
	Believe me, I know that this is not an easy truth to accept, but it is a fact. It is a reality of Christ that too few among the church are willing to accept. That is the key. The willingness to accept the fact that we are not in control of our lives. The deliberateness of this realization is that what we do on this earth has an immediate impact on the spiritual realm. As such, it is only in Christ, only by Christ, and only through Christ, that we have anything of spiritual value in complete submission to the sovereignty of God.
	As stated, forgiveness is one key to whether or not our lives are fully under the guidance, the complete guidance of the Holy Spirit, as the Body of Christ. Since forgiveness should be a natural function of our new life in Christ, much like breathing or our heart’s beating, there should not be very much need to dwell on it the length of time that we have. However, that does not seem to be the case with many of us, because we may be lacking in some fundamental principles of administration. Namely, it is an illuminating recognition of His administration of who we now are in Christ. 
	In Matt. 6:14, we have the words of the Lord Jesus Christ recorded, immediately after having spoken the Lord’s Prayer, as we so call it. For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
	What is the point of this conditional statement, if ye forgive...? To ease some minds immediately, it has nothing to do with our eternal salvation in Christ Jesus. It has to do with the life that we now live on this earth through the Lord Jesus Christ. It means the difference between recognizing, in fact and in deed, the sovereignty of God in our beings, or the upheaval that is created in the clinging onto our self-hood in opposition to what is spiritually true of our lives. When and if we ever fail to forgive anyone, we are basically telling God that we can make a better choice than He can concerning our place in the Body of Believers. This is a very simple way of stating such an audacity before God. We are telling Him that even if He can forgive, we can not because we have suffered too much hurt.
	Like it or not, we have put ourselves before God, and our rights and our feelings and our concerns are evidenced as more important than His. God forgave us all in Christ. It was not a simple issue of I guess I will do what I can to make things better. He forgave all the sins of the world through the very sacrifice of His Only Begotten Son. It cost God everything in Christ, to make Christ our everything, and He freely forgave all because of Christ. Now, we take it upon ourselves to hold something against another because we have been slightly injured in some manner, especially in comparison to what Our Lord Jesus Christ suffered in our stead? 
	We have the account in Luke 23:34, even of the forgiveness of God shed forth unto those who were wrongfully crucifying Christ. As He was suffering on the cross, in the anguish of all that He was bearing in His body, soul, and spirit, His thoughts were not of revenge nor of hatred. Rather, he stated in an appeal unto Heaven, ...Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.... It was not in His nature to hold ought against another, even against those who were putting Him to death in such an inglorious manner. Should we do any less? As the ones who have received all the blessing of God poured out on us in Christ, is there any option before us but to forgive freely, as we have been forgiven? We are the ones who suffer the greatest hurt when we fail to forgive all. We are the ones who find ourselves locked in a prison of our self making, hurting physically and spiritually without true communion with God. It is not that He hasn’t forgiven us, but rather that we have put ourselves in a very precarious situation of removal from the heart of God. Our life is stunted and deformed as we wallow in such self-abasement in our unforgiveness. There can be no fellowship with God or with the Body, true fellowship when we are refusing to obey even the simplest of God’s guidance in our lives. Mark 11:25 And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any; that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.
	How many times have we counseled and been counseled in terms of how terrible a thing it is not to forgive. It is a true wallowing in self-pity and self-righteousness that puts to shame the worst of the pig-stys of this realm. We open our beings unto all sorts of imaginations and hatreds when we fail to freely release our hurts before our brothers and sisters. There is no act as horrid as the crucifixion of Christ, and God could freely forgive that atrocity, so why can’t we freely forgive each other and ourselves.
	Yes! That is another area of this new life that we have received in Him. We are now free to forgive ourselves as He has forgiven us. Oh, the wasted time we spend in refusing to believe that anyone could forgive all the horrible things that we have done. Yes, maybe we do not hold anger toward any but ourselves, but even that is a violation of all that Christ has accomplished. If God can forgive us, why do we think that we are so enabled to not forgive ourselves in all our puny excuses for self-pity. So many of us desperately hold onto our mistakes and our short comings, and dwell on them so frequently that we have lost the true focus of our lives. Rather than rejoicing in the Lord for the great things that He has done, we center our vision on us, and how desperately we have failed to do anything of value in our lives. We bemoan our terrible situation, rather than glory in Him Who rightly deserves all the glory of creation. Do we realize that every time we spend even a moment in self-pity, we are denying God His rightful praise and honor and glory in our lives and in this realm? It is that serious an issue! 
	Too often, we feel that we are not causing any difficulty in our selfish refusal to forgive, even ourselves. We feel that we are hiding it between ourselves and the Lord, and no one else. But that is exactly the point. We are stealing from God all that He deserves in our lives. We are taking the place of honor and denigrating it with the pitiful exaltation of ourselves over Christ. That is precisely how giving in to any aspect of our self life, especially in the avenue of unforgiveness, serves to relegate Christ to a secondary place of honor in our beings after our concerns and after our hurts and after our frustrations and after our anger. When we try to control our lives, to be the one who decides whom to forgive and whom not to forgive, we are telling God that we know better than He does how to manage the business of living our lives on this earth. And, I tell you right now, before all these assembled witnesses, that God will not allow Christ to become secondary in the lives whom Christ has redeemed! There are sore trials and situations in our path that will slash to the core the very issue of Christ’s life, and our death to self. Count on it!
	Acts 5:31 Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins.
	There is too much vested in Christ, the only Begotten Son of God, to allow for any diminishing of His great and triumphant work. God’s glory will be seen in this world, seen by all creation in His Body of Believers. Our Omnipotent God has ordained this from before the very beginning of creation in order to have a heart-to-heart relationship with His Beloved. Jesus Christ is the means, the purpose and the fulfillment of that open heart of God. 
	To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me. In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace; Acts 26:18 & Eph. 1:7   
	For us, as believers, as the Body of Christ, we can do no less than to forgive, and to forgive completely, and to forgive freely. We have no basis to judge the hearts of others. Only God has that right and that place. We are to express Christ in His forgiveness unto all those who so cause us to feel violated and cheated and injured in any manner. To do any less is to debase God’s forgiveness unto us. What about those who seem to thrive on taking advantage of us, if we continually forgive them? Does it matter if we are treated as door mats, stepped on and taken advantage of repeatedly by those who continually ask us to forgive, and even by those who don’t ask forgiveness? Christ was asked a similar question and His response is quite telling. Luke 17:4 And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again to thee, saying I repent; thou shalt forgive him. It doesn’t matter how often we are asked to forgive someone, we are to forgive as we have been forgiven. It is the fundamental principle, once more, of being dead to ourselves and alive unto Christ. We are to count all the ills that we suffer, all the bad treatment, all the deception as not aimed at us. We are dead in deed. We can’t afford to take anything personally, no matter how painful it is. Our lives are hid in Christ. That means that we are no longer laid bare to the deprivations of this realm. What we suffer, and yes, we will suffer on this earth, we count as unto Christ. Everything that comes into our lives is to be considered as toward the Lord Jesus. We belong to Him! As such, He is the One to Whom our lives must remain completely attentive and focussed. When we are slandered, look to Christ, and rejoice in Him. This is a very hard lesson, but oh, so indispensable to our on-going in Christ. We do not rejoice in the evil done, but rather we glory in Christ, Who has overcome the world, and all its treachery. We do not sit idly by and accept the wanton disregard for our rights, because it is unnecessary to even consider that course of action or inaction. We have no rights! We are in Christ, secure in His victory. If someone mistreats us, and takes advantage of us, we turn to Christ and seek after the course of action He would have us take. And, what is the course of action that He takes upon any injury? Father, forgive them...
	Oh the grief we would save ourselves if we would but constantly look to Christ in every situation. If we could but open our eyes to the fact that we know now what we should do in every situation that comes our way. There is no guessing in Christ. It is very clear and concisely laid out how we should respond to every person who enters into our daily walk on this earth. Eph. 4:32 And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you. 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. 
	There is no area left for us in our self pitiful state of unforgiveness. As Christians, in Christ, seeking after all that God has for us in Jesus Christ, forgiveness must be freely forthcoming from us unto all who are part of our lives. I have been told that this is not an easy thing to do. I have been told that it is extremely difficult to forgive and to forget, because, yes, that too is a great part of forgiveness. God doesn’t look at us any longer in the rags of our old lives. He does not see what was and now what is. He sees only Jesus Christ, glorified, living forth His life from us, His willing and fully forgiven Body. 
	As such, we also must see others, forgetting what was, and looking only through the love of Christ into their hearts. If we look at them, and remember the suffering that they brought into our lives, we will not be seeing them in the Love of Christ. We will be injecting our self-life into the view and focussing our attention on us. No, only in Christ Jesus can we bring forth the glory of God, that magnificent glory of God that wrought such tremendous changes in us, to put us to death, that Christ may even more fully be expressed unto this universe.
	When we look at our selves, this forgiveness is utterly impossible. It will be set aside by our feelings and by our wants and by our desires and by our hatreds and by our insecurities. Forgive, never! Not after what he did to me. Forgive, I could never forgive her for all the hurt that I suffered because she did this! Forgive, of course I have forgiven, but I can never forget how much pain I suffered when.. How can I forgive when she was so insensitive to my needs... Look at all that he made me suffer... How could she treat me like this... How can I forget all the anguish ... Father, forgive them... 
	It is not up to us to forgive, it is up to Christ in us to forgive, and to forgive freely. As we give our lives completely over to Him, yes, we can forgive, and can forgive completely because He is the essence of forgiveness. We simply need to desire for Him to be manifested fully in these lives that we have given Him. That is His right, that is His desire, that is His plan and purpose. When we blow it, when we hold something against others, He has a way of dealing with us that is as miraculous as our very life in Him. I John 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. All we have to do is agree with Him that we need His hand operating effectively within us, and we will become avenues of forgiveness as we have been so freely forgiven. The pity is that when we fail to forgive, we find ourselves in separation from the spiritual life that now operates within us. We have not lost it, but rather, we are no longer drawing from the spiritual source of life that is necessary for full growth and maturity in Christ. Sadly, there are those who settle for this meager life in Christ, saved from hell, forgiven their sins, but dwelling in a prison of unforgiveness that encapsulates and robs them of the joy of knowing the full riches of Christ in life.
	Let us never rob God of the glory due Him in our lives, and never allow unforgiveness to have any area in our beings. Rather, let us encourage each other in the forgiveness of God one with another. Let us all go on in Christ to the depths of that which God has intended for us as the Body of Christ. Yes, it is a challenge, but it is completely attainable in Christ, by the working of the Holy Spirit. He is the essence of forgiveness and the very life that we now live.
	Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord. Lord, hear my voice: let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications. If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared. I wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope.
	
	Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, Make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is well pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ: to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen. (Heb. 13:20-21)