While recovering from hip replacement surgery, I spent much of the past week in front of my computer striving to up my social media game. I’ve got a long way to go.

I also took the opportunity to tinker with an AI tool for the first time, posing a simple question: what are the benefits of forgiveness? In a split second, an essay conveying a dozen mental and physical dividends was spewed my way. The rewards included improved mental health, enhanced relationships, emotional healing, heightened self-esteem, and reduced risk of such health issues as high blood pressure, cardiovascular stress and a weakened immune system. (But nothing about my hip!)

What was missing – and what I honestly did not expect to see in this highly secular response – was the benefit of salvation.

Don’t get me wrong – the ancillary benefits of mercy towards others are terrific. But those benefits will be savored for the blink of an eye – the amount of time we spend on this earth relative to eternity.

On the other hand, the Lord’s gift of salvation – a mercy of which we are all undeserving – can be enjoyed in perpetuity.

Christians understand that without God’s mercy and grace, we are each condemned to spend eternity separated from Him and His heavenly realm – in a place far less hospitable and in the company of those far less pleasant. In His mercy, Jesus took our sins to the cross. His grace by faith is available to all who believe in Him.

There is, however, a caveat. As we are taught throughout scripture:

“Judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy.”

James 2:13

One need look no further than the most forceful discourse ever given, the Sermon on the Mount, to bear witness to the Lord’s teaching that mercy begets mercy. In the Beatitudes:

“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.”

Matthew 5:7

In the teaching of the Lord’s Prayer:

“Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.”

Matthew 6:12

And His immediate point of re-emphasis upon teaching His disciplines how to pray was not about daily bread, temptation or the evil one. It was this:

“For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”

Matthew 6:14-15

But as emphatic as Jesus is on this point in the Sermon on the Mount, His most passionate message of mercy was delivered on the cross:

“Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.”

Luke 23:34

This was not only a gracious prayer to His Father seeking forgiveness for those who drove nails through His wrists and feet – it is an example that each one of us is to emulate.

“For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps: ‘Who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in His mouth’; who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously.”

1 Peter 2:21-23

Jesus trusted His Father to judge righteously. This is what He demands of us. He gave us the perfect words and the perfect example to follow.