Is There an Expiration Date on Forgiveness?

Forgiveness is probably one of the hardest feats you confront daily. Someone wrongs you and your first inclination is to nurse your hurt and condemn the hurter. That’s why the saying goes, “To err is human, to forgive divine.” 

Yet, since it’s so hard for us to forgive, we often assume that God’s mercy has an expiration date on it also. We wonder at what sin is He is going to throw up his hands and say, “This is the last straw!”

However, without God’s forgiveness and mercy, we are stuck.

Transformed

In my twenties, I was cocky salesman who traveled from port-to-port. I was good at what I did and believed the world owed me some pretty hefty favors. Then one day in walked a blond who somehow changed my life forever. Sounds like the beginning of a joke, but the joke was on me. This blond was the beginning of my own transformation.

How?

It wasn’t her faith… but her lack of faith that suddenly brought God back to mind. I saw first hand what the belief in ‘graceless god’ can do to someone and subsequently how the uncovering of the true Grace of God can absolutely free someone.

The blond is now my wife, Jaclyn. Through her, I got to witness the journey from point A to point Z. I watched as a woman wracked by fear and distrust unraveled the mystery of God’s grace and her transformation eventually became mine. I watched as she finally accepted Christ and how that leap of trust and newfound courage of faith changed every aspect of her. How she talked, how she walked, even how she thought. Grace is truly a game-changer.