"For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions."
Matt 6:14-15
Forgiving others can be an awful tough thing to do. Man is capable of all kinds of inhumanity to man. It is unnecessary to list offenses because it is suspected that at the reading of the scripture, many if not all of us went to a place in our minds where a struggle to forgive resides.
Sometimes we just have to get down to biblical brass tacks. There is no maybe, there is no probably and there is no might. The Lord unequivocally says that we are to forgive, period. He even goes further to say that His forgiveness of us is absolutely conditional upon our forgiveness of others. Let us be clear; if we do not forgive others, He will not forgive us!
Beware also of "forgiveness fatigue," when faced with the need to forgive more than once or twice. "Then came Peter to him and siad, Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Seven times? Jesus said to him, 'Not seven times, but seventy times seven.'" Matt 18:24.
Perhaps the best perspective to adopt when considering the wrongs that have been done to us is this: recall every single thing you have ever done that is outside the will of God. Everything. Remember then how you earnestly prayed, sometimes to the point of tears that God would forgive you. Then imagine God saying, "No. I will not forgive you for that. I will remember it throughout eternity and will periodically remind you of what you have done." Who among us would be able to live under such condemnation? When we fail to forgive, we not only subject our fellow human beings to the earthly version of this, but we perhaps unwittingly, subject ourselves to the eternal version of this.
"Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father who is in heaven will also forgive you your transgressions." Mark 11:25
[Memory verse of the week: Rev 3:20-21]
In Revival,
Lee
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