How forgiving is God?

score:7

If you are referring to the Christian God of the Bible, there are several points to keep in mind:

We cannot make bargains with the God of the Bible. We cannot say, "I'll stop doing A if you give me B." When we come to the God of the Bible, we serve Him for His own sake - we must place Him first in our lives, above all of our wants and desires.
God always forgives those who sincerely repent of their sins and our willing to do their best to place Him first in their lives, even people who have done many evil things. Consider Ahab, one of the most wicked kings in Israel's history. In I Kings 21 God had just pronounced terrible judgment on Ahab and Jezebeel and the author of I Kings makes it clear that Ahab is a bad dude. But after hearing this judgment, Ahab repents and in a shocking display of mercy God relents from sending disaster. We see the same attitude with Nineveh when Jonah prophesies against them. But we also see God destroy Jezebeel just as he promised and wipe out evil nations. So there is a balance here - God is always willing to forgive those who humble themselves. But he will judge the proud - such as Belshazzar who mocked God's name and then saw the writing on the wall.

Zanarkand 1196

Source: stackoverflow.com