We May Ask and EXPECT Pardon!

As I read my morning devotional, I read this line, "We may ask and expect pardon". My heart should have leaped from my chest. It did not. I was overwhelmed with sadness. For myself and for others, who are blind to the freedoms we have in Christ. The Word teaches me that I have access to the Throne, because of the Blood that I believe Christ shed for me. The problem is all of my religious upbringing (church, family, friends who are Christians, spouses) have shown me that "Grace" and "Forgiveness" are pipe dreams, at best. The truth of the matter is we, rarely, ask for pardon. We have been taught, by example, to justify our actions. We learned this way back in the Garden of Eden, where Adam blamed God for creating Eve, who MADE him eat the apple that God told him not to eat.

David taught us how to say, "My bad". But, you don't see much of the influence of David. If God called David, "a man after my own heart", shouldn't that be a clue of which example we should really be following? But, it gets worse! We become aggressive when we offend AND we become aggressive when we are offended. We are relentless in piling guilt on somebody, who has done nothing different than we have done ourselves. And having the ability to show "Grace" and "Forgiveness", we choose not to, because our feelings are damaged. Here is my dilemma...

If the statement, "we may ask and expect pardon" is true and we are created in the image of God, that is we are created with His likeness not just physically and spiritually, but emotionally too, then shouldn't I have the expectation of pardon from you? Shouldn't you have the expectation of pardon from me, when you mess up?

If we can agree that the Bible is true, then I can prove that you have God all wrong. Let's start in Romans, Chapter 3. There, it says that none of us are worthy. We all fall short. If that is a true statement, then I am in no position to hold your transgressions directed towards me, against you. Further, I cannot expect perfection from anybody. We ALL fall short!