You see, if we’re forced to be honest then we realise to our horror that there’s a part of us which can hate God’s free grace. Yes I said ‘hate’! Remember Jonah’s fury at God for forgiving the wicked city of Nineveh? (See the book of Jonah chapters 3 and 4) Or the older brother of the Prodigal Son who felt hard-done by because his Father seemed to be rewarding his brother’s sin? (Luke 15:25-31) It’s easy when we feel wronged by someone to confuse God’s forgiveness for wastefulness. We think good people should be rewarded and bad people should be condemned, and of course, we always put ourselves in that ‘good people’ category. We want to deny God’s role in our lives, kid ourselves that we are good enough for God without His grace and forgiveness. The love shown for us through Jesus’ sacrificial death on the cross makes us feel small, and we want to feel self-important. It’s our human pride. As the apostle Paul says, if we truly accept that God has saved us by His grace and grace alone, and not because of anything we have done, then there is absolutely NO room for pride! “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.” Ephesians 2:8&9

The Danger: Ditching Grace
There is a real danger in that kind of grace-hating attitude. There is a strong link between our attitude towards forgiving others, and our attitude towards the God of forgiveness.  If we don’t forgive others, it suggests we don’t really know forgiveness from God. Matthew 6:15 says: “But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.” and Hebrews 12: 15 warns:  ‘See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.‘ It is possible to miss the grace of God – to never know His forgiveness of us because our hearts are hardened, and we want to do things “my way”. If we reject forgiving others, by default we reject God’s forgiveness of us, and we leave ourselves outside of God’s grace, and ultimately, cut off from Him completely. If we choose to be outside of God’s grace, James tells us that “judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful.” James 2:12-13