Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Forgiving the Offense

“Hiding hatred makes you a liar;
slandering others makes you a fool”.    Proverbs 10:18  NLT

God forgives us of our sins and He expects us to forgive others.

When we refuse to forgive another person for an offense, we are refusing the forgiveness that God gave us through His Son.

God will hold us accountable for unforgiveness as Jesus illustrated in the parable of the unforgiving servant. (Matthew 18:21-35)

Another fact about unforgiveness is that it is a form of pride. When we have been ‘wronged’ by someone, we have a fleshly desire to see justice done.   When we withhold forgiveness, we are basically passing judgment on that person.  God instructs us to trust Him for justice.

The Bible tells us, “Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord”.  (Romans 12:19 NKJV)

This can be very hard to do, especially if someone has spitefully mistreated us or it is someone we love.   Forgiving is not condoning what they have done, but rather, it is laying the situation before God’s throne and asking Him to deal with it.

God saw the offense that was done and He knows how deeply you have been hurt.   If you can come to the place where you are willing to forgive the person through Christ’s love then you will be able to move forward and leave the burden in God’s hands.

After forgiving this person(s) we must walk past the offense and resist the temptation to revisit this offense in our minds and conversations.

This will require a choice to forgive and not seek pity or attention from others by repeating the matter constantly and not ‘rehashing’ it over and over with the offender or others.

We will be challenged to shake it off and exercise our authority in Jesus name as we take our thoughts and emotions captive.

As we take our stand to resist this temptation, the Holy Spirit within us will empower us to victory.

 “…. when you stand and pray, forgive anything you may have against anyone, so that your Father in heaven will forgive the wrongs you have done”.   Mark 11:25 GNT

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