Lesson 7: Faith in Christ
Questions 1 and 2
Welcome back to the A United Front course. I’m glad you are here.
For the past couple of lessons, we have been discussing biblical forgiveness. We’ve seen how important it is, what it is, and what it isn’t. By way of reminder, we learned that God expects us to follow Him in extending mercy and forgiveness to others because we have received mercy and been forgiven such a great debt of sin.
We also answered the question regarding how often we forgive. Please review Luke 17:3-4 NIV, “So watch yourselves. If your brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them; and if they repent, forgive them. Even if they sin against you seven times in a day and seven times come back to you saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive them.”
Question 1. According to Luke 17:3-4, how often are we to forgive our spouse if they repent?
It is a natural response of our flesh to defend ourselves, stand up for our rights, and to insist that offenses against us get punished. By nature, we like to have limits, i.e., "three strikes and you're out." And yet, the Bible tells us that as followers of Jesus, we are called and equipped to forgive every time someone asks. This is a hard truth.
Notice the disciples' response to Jesus’ teaching on forgiveness. “The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” Luke 17:5
Faith is a necessity to our life in Christ—we are saved “by grace through faith” (Ephesians 2:8), we “live by faith” (Romans 1:17), and Hebrews 11:6 tells us that “without faith, it is impossible to please God.” We need faith for everything in our Christian life, but especially to forgive as we have been forgiven because when we forgive repeatedly, we are following Christ and uniting with Him in His sufferings. To forgive is to let go of the offense and trust God to make things right instead of requiring the offender to do it.
Question 2. How is your faith today? Can you relate to the disciples’ cry, “Lord, increase our faith!”? Please share your thoughts here:
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