Forgiving Others

For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. (Matthew 6:14-15 ESV).

Anyone can hold a grudge, but it takes a person with character to forgive. When you forgive, you release yourself from a painful burden. Forgiveness doesn't mean what happened was OK, and it doesn't mean that person should still be welcome in your life. It just means you have made peace with the pain, and are ready to let it go. Jesus has the answer—as always. Instead of focusing on the other person’s sin and our righteousness, we need to focus on our sin and God’s righteousness. When we look through God’s eyes, we gain proper perspective. No one is righteous. No one “deserves” forgiveness. Yet God forgave us our millions of sins. This allows us to look at those who hurt us with new eyes, to see them as fellow sinners in desperate need of forgiveness. In the spring of 1981, both Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II were shot and seriously wounded in assassination attempts. Even though each struggled to survive, both the President and the Pope made it a priority to forgive the very people who tried to kill them. Ronald Reagan said, “I realized I couldn’t ask for God’s help while at the same time I felt hatred for the mixed up young man who had shot me. Isn’t that the meaning of the lost sheep? We’re all God’s children and therefore, equally beloved by Him. I began to pray for his soul and that he would find his way back into the fold.” Now these are not normal responses when someone tries to kill you! Where did these great men learn such actions? They learned it from Jesus! And not only did they learn it from Jesus, but also they were empowered by the Holy Spirit to be able to forgive. This ability and motivation to forgive under those circumstances could only come from one source – the One who said, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they do.” If Jesus can provide these leaders with the ability to forgive their assassins, don’t you think He can give you the power to forgive those who have offended you? If forgiveness were easy, Jesus wouldn’t have had to talk about it so much. When someone wrongs us, it hurts, especially if that someone is someone we trusted. And that hurt seeps into our souls. Our thoughts focus on the wrong done to us, and how very wrong it was. We justify our own actions and condemn the actions of the person who hurt us. Well meaning friends tell us we’re right, the other person wrong. Self-righteousness and bitterness take hold. Servant to servant, sinner to sinner, let’s offer mercy and forgiveness remembering the greater mercy and forgiveness shown to us.