Colossians 2:13-15 And you, who were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, having canceled the bond which stood against us with its legal demands; this he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the principalities and powers and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in him.
Jesus cancelled the bond against us with their legal demands by nailing them to the cross. We are forgiven our trespasses because of the unique one of a kind, once for all time free will sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. I say unique because that has been the witness of the church from the first Easter until today. The claim that this is true was registered by prophets for centuries before Christ and the fact that Jesus came to forgive sins came from Jesus mouth itself. St Paul writes that without the unique life death and resurrection of Jesus, we are still trapped in our sins.
God worked out for me what I was never able to accomplish for myself. I had been on the edge of accepting the blessings God had prepared for me for a number of years but was held back by my own inability to just accept that God would do this for me. Forgive me, and all I had to do was accept his forgiveness through faith in Jesus. God loved me unconditionally, how could this be true? I couldn't love anyone unconditionally. I was a score keeper, who thought I could keep an accurate ledger of who owed who what in my life. What is this unconditional stuff anyway? Don't we have to be worthy?
I've come a long way since I accepted his love and forgiveness. I have learned something about unconditional love and have even been able to give it on a number of occasions with a number of people. The forgiven learn to forgive, the loved learn to love, the Holy Spirit keeps giving and giving as the Prince of Peace gives deep peace, the God of providence provides, it is an unending powerful relationship that changes us for ourselves but even more for those around us.
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