forgiveness

Follow-up to a service on Sunday. The sermon was on forgiveness. It was expressed during the service that "Forgiveness is the key to the existence of a Christian." Some seemed open to this. Others seemed afraid and maybe one or two were a bit put-off.

The question: What if a person doesn't deserve it? What if they haven't repented of what caused the offense or changed the way they were living or........?

The answer to this: You are still accountable for the forgiveness between you and God even if you have not given them such face to face.

I heard a preacher once who said that the only time you are required to express forgiveness to a person is when they are showing you repentance. Maybe so, but there comes a time when you can be using this for an excuse to hold onto anger as well. "They are never going to change", "Every time I forgive them, they still do the same thing", "How do I know that they are really sorry?" Any number of reasons to hold onto anger.

Forgiveness is the key to the existence of a Christian. If you cannot forgive, you are not living as a Christian. God says: I will forgive them their since and remember them no more. This is the standard of forgiveness that God sets. The moment we begin to change this standard, we then place ourselves in His stead. The first 11 apostles were given the authority either hold onto others sins or to let those sins go. The power is not in holding onto them. It is easy to hold a grudge. It is easy to be angry with others and to allow them to be your "reason" for being miserable, living in pain, living unhappy, never realizing that the kingdom is so near to us that we but need to reach for it in faith.

If you are unhappy, if you have not experienced joy, if you are ill, in pain, uncomfortable, angry, disappointed, or just simply "blah", I offer this advice:

Ask God, beg of Him, plead with Him to come to you and search you, have His Spirit begin at your toes and work His way up filling you with His Spirit with the intent of pushing anything of unforgiveness to the surface that you may take this ______ and place it before the throne of God, lay it at the foot of His cross and......

Turn Away from it.

Allow Him to do with it as He will, but as for you, Forgive........