Christian Family Services Ministry

A Word to the Wise – 7-30-2020 – FORGIVENESS

My mother taught me some very meaningful lesson that remain with me even some 70 years later. This is the most important.

I have often thought that forgiveness is the most difficult of Christ’s commandments. But again soon we discover this too is for ourselves.

Often it is little or no gain to the one forgiven by us. It is for ourselves. It is through forgiving that we keep our hearts from hatred and bitterness. It is through forgiveness that we do not fall into the trap of seeking vengeance or desiring to get even.

We must desire a pure heart—but this is not obtained as a free gift from God. It is developed through keeping our hearts and minds. A part of this process of keeping is the byproduct of learning to forgive.

Oddly enough the greater the injustice done us the greater the need to quickly forgive. We must not give place to the devil. If the evil one can fasten our attention on how greatly we have been wronged he then as planted the seeds that will bring forth hatred and bitterness.

The spirit of vengeance will indeed destroy our souls.

This is what in the end Christ cannot forgive us if we have refused to forgive those who have sinned against us.

Only the pure in heart will see God. And the heart that refuses to forgive is burdened with impurities. The reason we refuse to forgive is so we can avoid our own guilt and our own need to be forgiven.

Our besetting sin is a manifestation of a specific inner spiritual deficit that imprisons our soul. (Matthew 18:21ff)