Weekend Talk: What the Pope said

Two weeks ago, a young girl of about 12 years old asked me a difficult question that made me remember the Venerable Pope Francis. 

It was on Emmaus Day, and we were at church commemorating the day with evangelism and a picnic. It was also on that very day—the day after Easter Sunday—that the Pope went to be with the Lord.

“Our God is a forgiving Father,” I told the group of young people I was meeting.

The 12-year-old girl among them raised her hand and asked, “Will God always forgive us if we continue doing wrong things and keep confessing to him for forgiveness?”

That question seemed too deep for a small girl, but you can expect even deeper questions from these Children’s Service kids.

My response was: “Yes, God will always forgive anybody who repents and prays to him for forgiveness—always.”

Gracious Father

The moment I said this, I remembered the Pope.  For, it is reported that someone once asked the Pontiff, “Your holiness, please, is it true that God will always forgive us no matter how many times we sin and go to him?”

The holy father’s answer was swift.  “Yes,” he said, “God will always forgive.

We may get tired of repeatedly asking for forgiveness, but God will never get tired of forgiving us!”

The Pope’s statement points to the gracious heavenly Father whose hands are always stretched out to welcome us back to Himself.

As the Lord Jesus said, “He who comes to me, I will never cast out” (John 6:37).

Isaiah points out that our sins separate us from God and hide his face from us (Isaiah 59:1, 2).

Yet when it comes to dealing with our sins, God graciously invites us to come to him: “Come now, and let us reason together,” says the Lord.

“Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow” (Isaiah 1:18).

Don’t go away

The apostle Peter alluded to this fact when Jesus asked his disciples, “Will you also go away?”—because many of his followers had deserted him.

“Lord, to whom shall we go?” Peter replied, “You alone have the words of eternal life.”

If we know that eternal life can be found in no one else, we would have no choice but to return to him for reconciliation and restoration every time we fall into sin.  

Hence, the Pope said no matter how many times we sinned and went to God, he would forgive us and accept us back.

We may get tired of making that laborious trip to and from God, but God will not get tired of forgiving us.

This profound revelation should not be misconstrued to be a licence to perpetuate a sinful lifestyle; it should rather draw us closer to our loving Father who calls us to Himself no matter our weaknesses.

When the Lord Jesus was asked how many times we need to forgive others, he replied, “Seventy times seven”.

That number is not literal, of course; it is a call to always have the attitude of forgiveness.

More than “seventy times seven,” God will always forgive us every time we approach him with sincere repentance.

The problem with this subject is how it seems to suggest that a believer can neglect the importance of righteous living and wilfully indulge in sin because he knows God will always forgive.

Those who think and act like that may not have experienced spiritual restoration where the new life has come and the old is gone (2 Corinthians 5:17).

If we come to Christ but keep on falling back into our old lifestyles, we could soon backslide and never return, such as Demas (2 Timothy 4:10), who abandoned ministry with Paul in favour of worldly pursuits.

Reading between the lines of the Pope’s answer, we deduce that we can get tired of going back and forth to God.

The result could be the state of apostasy or a hardened heart when the way back to God may be blocked by unbelief.

Just remember!

Remember the prodigal son. Before he returned home, his father used to wait for him in vain.

It was a good thing he eventually returned to his father; otherwise, the wilderness could have swallowed him up!

Many people have kept God waiting for them for years, but they are not showing up.

You don’t want to fall into Satan’s procrastination trap.

That is why the Lord Jesus calls: “Come to me, all who labour and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.”

In our relationship with God, it is not enough to just keep on asking for forgiveness though we know he will surely forgive us.

But even more crucial is to continuously walk close with him, seek him diligently, and obey him.

For God loves cheerful and obedient followers.