Glorifying God with Forgiveness
“Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.” ~ Matthew 18:21, 22
We’ve already covered a lot of ways through which we can glorify God. Did you ever think of how we can glorify God by forgiving those who have done us wrong? Over the past few years, the LORD has been teaching me that forgiveness is one of the most extreme, most important ways we need to be like Christ…yet sadly, it is one of the ways that so many Christians are NOT like Christ.How easy it is to hold grudges; to wish bad things to happen to those who have hurt us; to want to run away from painful circumstances; to say that “I will never talk to that person again!”; to feel justified in being rude to someone who has hurt us because “what they did to me is SO much worse than anything I have ever done”…the list goes on and on. I think we get the idea.
…but think about it, girls: do any of the things in the previous paragraph mimic what Jesus did? We know He bore the entire world’s sins – the thought of that is something we truly cannot comprehend. Yet, the way that becomes personal to us is when we think about the fact that Jesus bore pain and suffering because of our sins. My sins. Ouch.
“Forgive and forget” – it’s something we hear a lot. Yet, forgiving and forgetting is something God has not given us the ability to do. The Bible tells us that God is able to truly forgive and forget – but we are not able to. Sometimes I ask Him, why can’t we forgive and forget like You do, Father? It sure would make things easier!
What He has shown me is that, perhaps the main reason we aren’t able to do this is because He knows there are vital lessons we will learn through the struggle of learning to forgive others. He would not have asked us to forgive others if doing so was not possible; so, somehow (probably in a different way for each of us), there is a way to forgive those who hurt us. God has given us plenty of truths about forgiveness in His Word – so it is up to us to discover the personal steps of forgiveness He has for us by studying the Bible.
Forgiving like Christ is not easy – in fact, it is quite painful. But think back to what Christ endured for us! If Christ did that for us, can’t we learn to do that for others?
Scripture Reading for the Day:
Proverbs 7
Revelation 14
Forgiveness is something I hard to do very often, but forgetting is something even harder for me to do. I pray God will help me to be more forgiving and able to forget
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