Ephesians 4:32 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.
Today’s verse takes us to the end of chapter four in Ephesians. In it, Paul tells us that we are to be kind and compassionate, something many people in our world fail to do. It seems the more we go on, the worse society seems to get. Everyone takes offense at the slightest things, and people have lost pretty much all respect for one another.
But as believers we are called to show grace and love for one another, to be kind and compassionate. In this verse, Paul uses the Greek word eusplanchnoi, which means to be “tenderhearted.” As Christians, we are to be sympathetic of one another. Believers are not to be known for having a harsh attitude or showing a lack of love or grace, but rather they are to be known as showing compassion for others. And that means non-believers as well as believers. We cannot pick and choose who to show grace to. We are called to love everyone, as Christ loved us. We learned that in yesterday’s message (1 John 4:10-11).
In addition to being kind and compassionate, Paul commands readers to forgive one another, as well. Just like we said yesterday about loving others, we are also to be forgiving. He forgave us, so we need to forgive others. Scripture often reminds us to be forgiving. For example, we see it in Matthew 6:12 where Jesus models to us asking God to “forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” And then in Matthew 26:28, we are reminded that the blood of Jesus was specifically “poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”
This is not the first time we have discussed forgiveness this month in our exploration of grace, and will likely not be the last time. Let’s keep it in mind as we move forward and focus on giving grace to others with kindness and compassion as we forgive them for their trespasses.
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