This morning we are so blessed by a new post from Connie Keyohara! God Bless you Connie! You and yours are always in our prayers.
And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins. Mark 11:25
Sometimes forgiving someone who hurt us is the last thing we want to do. God commands us to forgive others, just as He has forgiven us of our sins! It is our responsibility as Christians and a mandate from God to love others as Christ loves us and to offer forgiveness to those who have hurt us. Of course, forgiving someone does not always mean you can have a relationship with them, but forgiveness is important in the Christian walk.
Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. Colossians 3:13
Before we can move forward in forgiveness, we have to figure out what actually brought us here and how we’ve been wounded. We have to figure out how we can change the outcome of that hurt. We have all authority in Christ to change the path we take during this season of hurt. (The paths we choose can also have different consequences.)
Other times we retaliate. Because we hurt, we now want to hurt. Hurt people hurt people, and this is not uncommon during our time of offense. We possibly want to make our offender feel worse than we do. Such feelings are natural, but as long as we focus on the pain, we’ll never let go and move on and that’s where sin steps in.
In my early years as a Christian I always thought that if you forgive somebody or let an offense go that meant they were right and you were wrong or perhaps this made you weak, but in all actuality it’s what God expects from us. I’m not suggesting that your hurts are by any means non existent, but rather trying to help you move on from the hurt and offense that are often a real time of devastation.
I have lived without forgiveness and it caused unnecessary stress and I’ve also been on the other end of it where I was not forgiven. Both aspects are wrong and hurtful.
The important thing to remember is that the lack of forgiveness is what most often time comes between people and God.
The good news is that God understands our hurts and pain. It’s sometimes a slow process to get to the point of forgiveness, but hopefully we will get there in time.
Matthew 6:12 – From the Lord’s Prayer – “And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors
My prayer for you today is that you’ll forgive as Christ has forgiven you.
Many Blessings,
