When Christian missionaries went to work among the Eskimos, they found that the Eskimo language did not have a word for forgiveness. Since forgiveness of sins is the reason Jesus came to earth to live and then to die on the cross, they needed a word for forgiveness. This is the word they came up with: ISSUMAGIJOUJUNGNAINERMIK. Can you pronounce it? It means, “Not to think about it anymore.” Because the Lord Jesus took the punishment for the sins of everyone who has trusted in Him to be their Saviour, their sins are gone - their record is wiped clean! And God doesn’t even think about those sins anymore! He says, “I will forgive their iniquity [sins], and I will remember their sin no more” (Jeremiah 31:3434And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more. (Jeremiah 31:34)). True love doesn’t keep a record of wrongs, and God truly loves us.
When the Lord Jesus was here on earth, Peter asked Him, “Lord, how [often] shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? . . . seven times?” (Matthew 18:2121Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? (Matthew 18:21)). Now seven is quite a few times to forgive someone who has hurt you, isn’t it? Peter must have thought so. But the Lord Jesus told him how many times we should forgive - “until seventy times seven” (vs. 22). Then Jesus told Peter a story.
A certain king had a servant who owed the king more money than he could ever pay. So the king ordered that the man, his wife, his children and everything he owned was to be sold so the payment could be made to the king. When the servant heard the king’s order, he fell down before the king and said, Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay everything back. Instead, the king forgave the full amount the servant owed and let him go free!
You and I also have a huge debt that we could never pay ourselves. That debt is our giant load of sins. But the Lord Jesus went to Calvary’s cross and paid the debt for every sin for each person who will receive Him as their Saviour. He is willing to forgive you and me of every single one of our sins! He has already completely paid the price for those sins with His own blood. “We have redemption through [Jesus’] blood, the forgiveness of sins” (Ephesians 1:77In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace; (Ephesians 1:7)).
God wants us to accept His wonderful, free gift - to be washed completely clean of every sin in the blood of His beloved Son. In this way, by simply believing in the Lord Jesus, we are born into God’s family and become one of His children. Then He wants us to act like His children.
Do you want to be like Jesus? If you do, you must freely forgive others. If we continue to talk about or think about how others have hurt us, we have not really forgiven them. Remember the Eskimo word for forgiveness: ISSUMAGIJOUJUNGNAINERMIK, which means, “Not to think about it anymore.” God tells us in Ephesians 4:3232And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. (Ephesians 4:32), “Be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.”
ML-10/16/2005