We have all been wronged. And we have all hurt others. It is a symptom of being a human living in a sinful world. Yet God gives us a pathway out of the hurt and anger and bitterness it can lead to by giving us forgiveness. He even offered the ultimate act of forgiveness, as Romans 5:8 reveals: “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

“Christ has given us a storehouse of forgiveness when he forgave us,” pastor Marvin Williams explained. “When we can reflect on how much we’ve been forgiven, it gives us the impetus and heart to forgive others.”

Marvin shared a powerful story about how he was able to draw from that storehouse of forgiveness when he first became a pastor at his church. A week after preaching a sermon from the book of Malachi about resetting peoples’ hearts, Marvin was approached by a young parishioner.

“A White gentleman came up to me and said, ‘I need to apologize to you because when you were a pastoral candidate at this church, I didn’t vote for you because you were Black,’” Marvin relayed. The man had experienced racism while incarcerated, and Marvin was a representation of that to him. 

While Marvin was quick to accept his apology, the man urged him: “You need to hear me. I need you to forgive me. Since you’ve been here, my life has been changed by the Word of God. I want you to know that I do not want the prejudice that I’m holding to seep into the heart of my son, so I need you to forgive me.”

Marvin quickly realized that this was more than a prejudice issue. He said, “When he brought these walls down that I didn’t even know existed, I thought, Wow, he’s taking his faith in Jesus seriously. He’s taking the Word of God seriously. And I think that’s where the sweetness for me came was that this was part of his discipleship.”

It took the Holy Spirit working in this man’s heart, and it wasn’t a matter of him simply “getting caught” and being forced to say he was sorry.

“There was remorse, confession, and repentance,” Marvin said. “For him to actually share it unprovoked, allowed me to know that the Spirit of God was at work.” And it was important for Marvin to acknowledge and honor that process.

“From that point on, every time we saw each other, he gave me a big hug,” Marvin noted with a smile. “And he became one of my greatest advocates at Trinity Church and one of my greatest friends there.”

This is a beautiful example of asking for forgiveness and having grace extended immediately, but it doesn’t always work that way.

“We think that forgiveness automatically means reconciliation,” Marvin explained. “We see in Scripture that forgiveness can and should be instantaneous. Reconciliation can take time.”

As Jesus explained to Peter in the parable of the unmerciful servant (Matthew 18:21–35), forgiveness should be from the heart and without constraints. 

“We should not set boundaries and limits on who we will forgive and how many times we will forgive. If the person is genuine in their remorse, genuine in their confession, genuine in their repentance, then I am obligated as a Christ follower to forgive that person,” Marvin explained. “It almost sounds like crazy talk if we weren’t recipients of the kindness that God gave us through His Son.”

As Ephesians 4:32 says, “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” Restored fellowship with others is possible because God first extended it to us, and we can trust Him in His perfect plan of forgiveness.

“If you think that you have done something so heinous, so offensive, that there is no way you can be forgiven, that is a lie from the pit of hell,” Marvin said. “We have a good, good Father who forgives, and His forgiveness is limitless, and His forgiveness is complete.”