Bible Studies for Life: November 8

The Reason for Forgiveness • Isaiah 43:1-7, 21-25 

By Don Hicks

Hicks

The Focus for this lesson is “God loves us and wants to restore us for His glory.” The key word in this focus statement is LOVES and it is the key word for this lesson. Love is a key word in a considerable number of Bible verses. Our four-year-old granddaughter brought us a bookmark with a picture of a lamb and this Bible truth is on it: “God made us, we are His,” (Psalm 100:3). 

To study the Bible background for this lesson about God’s loving forgiveness, read Isaiah 43:1-44:6 and review I Corinthians 13.

What does love mean? You can get a good hint toward the deeper meaning of love in the setting of a Christian family.  The love of a Christian husband in a God blessed marriage for his wife and children is a good example of this type of self-giving love. A mother’s love for her children is another way people have tried to explain true love. The loving examples of both fathers and mothers point us to love at work in our world.  

Joshua 24:15 reminds us that we can choose to serve the one true, living, and loving Lord. This is the way Joshua forcefully announced the need to make this choice: “But if it doesn’t please you to worship the LORD, choose for yourselves today: Which will you worship — the gods  your ancestors worshipped beyond the Euphrates River or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living? As for me and my family, we will worship the LORD,” (Joshua 24:15 CSB).

Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthian church, told them, “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity {love}, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal,” (I Cor. 13:1 KJV). If you have access to a good modern translation, like CSB, read I Cor. 13:4-13 in it.  

  • Love is patient 
  • Love is kind 
  • Love does not envy
  • Love is not boastful
  • Love is not arrogant
  • Love is not rude
  • Love is not self-seeking 
  • Love is not irritable 
  • Love does not keep a record of wrongs 
  • Love never ends
  • Now these three remain: faith, hope, and love 
  • But the greatest of these is LOVE.

Dr. Luke, near the end of his Gospel, gave us this explanation of love and forgiveness: “Then Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them, because they do not know what they are doing,’” (Luke 23:34a CSB). Jesus prayed a unique loud and loving prayer as he was hanging on the cross in the painful time of dying  by crucifixion. Those Roman Solders who were executing him were below the cross, casting lots (gambling) to divide his clothes. “The people stood watching, and even the leaders {Jewish priests and others} were scoffing: ‘He saved others; let him save himself if this is God’s Messiah, the Chosen One! The soldiers also mocked him,’” (Luke 23:35-36 CSB).

There is a great deal of difference between real forgiveness and just moving on past an offense. Our teacher’s book says, “If we merely move past the offence, we can always return to it” (page 116 of leaders’ guide). 

Isaiah 43:25 (CSB) tells us this great spiritual truth, “I sweep away Your transgressions  for my own sake and remember your sins no more.”

Love is God’s motive in forgiveness. Remember I John 4:8b, “God is love.” The next words John wrote were: “God’s love is revealed among us in this way: God sent his one and only Son into the world so that we might live through him. Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins” (I John 4:9-10 CSB).  

John continues to explain “Dear friends (this includes me and all other believers in Christ Jesus), if God loved us in this way, we also must love one another. No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God remains in us and his love is made complete in us” (I John 4:11-12  CSB).

Hicks is a member of Park Place Baptist Church, Pearl.