Who needs to give mercy?

As I was reading through James this morning, I came across this passage.

For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment. (James 2:13 ESV)

 It struck me that showing mercy is not optional for the Christian. In Matthew 18:21-35, we see a parable where the necessity of mercy is shown. What we see here is a king who forgives a great debt, but the person who has the great debt forgiven refuses to forgive a small debt owed to him. This is a parallel to our situation.

If we claim to be a Christian, but hold unforgiveness in our hearts then we are misunderstanding the gospel. What we are primarily misunderstanding is the size of our own debt and the greatness of the mercy of God toward us. God is not minimizing the sin done to us (Jesus had to die for that too), but He does want us to minimize our own sin. If we do, we minimize the greatness of God and His mercy toward us.

The practical outworking of this is seen in the lack of true joy in our lives and ultimately leads to sin against other people because we are not able to love others like we should. So my encouragement to you if you find yourself having a hard time forgiving someone is to first spend time with God and find out how great He is (Read Matthew 18:21-35). Then examine your own heart for ways that you have failed to trust Him and ways that you have sinned against others. Repent and humble yourself before God and allow yourself to know His mercy. Then ask God for His help in showing mercy and forgiveness to others. You cannot give away what you do not have, and so forgiveness of others starts with receiving it from Him.

If you do these things, you can be free, both from the guilt of your own sin and the ongoing pain of the sin that was done against you. We are commanded to rejoice and promised that we can have peace (Philippians 4:4-8), and God never commands us to do something or have something that He does not also provide the way to accomplish it.