Total Forgiveness

 It is not easy for most of us to forgive others who hurt us. We tend to hold on to our memory of what happened and our hurt. Then, whenever anything else happens our mind wants to go back and relive the previous hurts, too. It is a terrible way to live. We need to learn how to forgive others totally, so that we are free from any further consequences of what happened in the past. In order to do this we must learn to forgive like God forgives. It is possible if we really have that desire. As Christians, He gives us His Spirit to guide us and empower us to do His will. God commands us to forgive others, so He will help His children accomplish this important task. David gave us a clear picture of how God forgives us. (Psalm 103:12) He told us that God removes our transgressions from us as far as the east is from the west. Isn't that an amazing description of God's total forgiveness? Of course, the east goes infinitely to the east and the west does the same in the opposite direction. Therefore, God will never bring those sins back up to us. They are gone forever, totally forgiven.

Please, remember that when we do not forgive others, it doesn't hurt them, but it hurts us. We might hope that our unforgiveness would punish them for their offense, but that is like drinking poison and thinking it will hurt the other person. Unforgiveness is a cancer to our soul. It grows into resentment and bitterness. Then, the bitterness affects all of our relationships in one way or another. Therefore, we must cast away the sins of others against us, just like Jesus cast ours away. We must remove them, cancel the debt the person owes us, once and for all, so that we are able to love them fully once more. That is what Jesus does for us when we have our sins forgiven. The sins that had separated us from God are gone, when we trust Him as Lord and Savior. He never brings them back up. Even in the Day of Judgment it will not be about our sins. It will be about our works, whether we did God's will He had planned for us or not and how we did it. Let's all ask God to empower us to forgive like He does. Then, let's do it and see just how wonderful life can be when we are free from that burden on us.

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Tomorrow, I intend to read Psalms 105-107