Is It Real?

Forgiveness.  It’s a word we hear quite often in religious circles these days.  Turn on cable television at any hour and you will probably hear at least three or four different conversations about it.  In virtually every congregation of every variety, you can hear preaching about the submission inherent in forgiveness, prayer for its efficacy in the lives of men, and praise for the fruit forgiveness brings in the lives of those who would call themselves Christian.  Does an evening pass when we do not bow our knee to our Father, thanking Him for the atoning sacrifice of His Son Jesus and beg for more forgiveness in our lives?  And all this is rightly so.  Without forgiveness, there would continue to be remembrance of sins past and a certain dread of the day we enter eternity.

Yet sometimes, however, I can’t help but wonder.  Beneath all our religiosity, is the power of forgiveness real and alive in our hearts?  Do we know what the Bible means when it states that God forgives?  Do we go about living lives of forgiveness, forgiving others the same way we trust God to forgive us?  If not, our preaching is waste, our prayers are nothing more than vain repetitions, and our psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs are but pointless parodies of the truths they claim to possess.  Tonight, I’m contemplating just this one thing – is forgiveness real in our lives?