What would it mean if you said, "I can't forgive that person?"

We live in a fallen world; that is, what we see is not like it began.

Almighty God, the Lord of heaven and earth, created everything we know and see. He created man and woman in His image (Genesis 1:27). Man and woman were superior to all the other creatures God created in that they had the capacity to know and respond to Him.

In the beginning God placed man and woman in a pristine garden designed to be just right and to fulfill every need imaginable. He had no desire to have mind-numbed robots in His presence, so He gave Adam and Eve, the first man and woman, power to make choices.

To make the power of choice viable, God provided an avenue whereby Adam and Eve could choose against Him. This avenue was a tree called the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil," which was placed in the midst of the garden in plain sight (Genesis 3:3). With the tree came the command that Adam and Eve were not to eat of it (Genesis 2:17).

Adam exercised his choice and ate of the forbidden tree. Adam's decision to choose against God is called sin. Sin caused God to have to separate Adam and Eve from His presence and put them outside the garden (Genesis 3:23-24). Man was now living in a fallen state, with knowledge of good and evil but alienated from God.

God was not content that His prize-created beings (i.e. Adam, Eve, and their descendants) would live in spiritual darkness alienated from Him. Mankind had no power to redeem himself to God. If redemption was to take place, it was God who had to do it.

God is holy and righteous. Man was sinful and fallen. It would take a holy transaction to satisfy God. God's only Son, Jesus Christ the Righteous, was the only one in the entire universe who could provide the way for man to get back to God.

The way back to God required death, because the penalty for sin was death. Man could not die for himself, so literally Jesus Christ came to earth, lived as a man (the God-man), and went to the cross and died for the sin of mankind.

God was now satisfied in His righteous judgment. Man could return to God through faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross. The finished work of Christ includes the fact that after the price of sin was paid by His death, God raised Jesus from the dead by His mighty power.

There it is, as stated by the Apostle Paul: "In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace" (Ephesians 1:7). Forgiveness of sins was fully paid for by Jesus Christ and is available to all who will believe and put their trust in Jesus Christ.

So what would it mean if you said, "I can't forgive that person?"

There are basically two types of people in the world: those who have given their lives to Christ and those who have not. Those who have given their lives to Christ have received forgiveness of sin totally by the grace of God. For a Christ-follower not to freely forgive anybody and everybody is an unconscionable act. It is unreasonable to think that one so freely forgiven would not forgive.

For those who do not know Jesus Christ as Savior and have not tasted of His forgiveness, it would be consistent that they would have no pattern or compulsion to forgive.

You would expect those who do not yet know Christ to be angry, bear grudges, and allow bitterness to rule. But a Christ-follower who does not freely forgive others has literally short-circuited their professed faith and put themselves in the place of God.

As Joseph the son of Jacob said to his brothers who had greatly wronged him, "Am I in the place of God?" (Genesis 50:19). Joseph knew God and therefore freely forgave his brothers for their dastardly deeds.

Anybody can forgive, but it is imperative that Christ-followers lead the way.