"Do It For YOU!"

Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you.

Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.

Colossians 3:13

We've discussed this before, but I felt compelled to broach the subject again...FORGIVENESS!  We want it. We like knowing that we have been forgiven. But we're not so keen to be the Forgiver!  In fact, we seem to rather enjoy holding grudges.  We even trot them out every so often to look at them again. We talk about them.  We hope others will join us in our grudges.  It's almost as if we are addicted to them and we don't know how we can live without them. In the prayer that Jesus taught His Disciples, there is the line: "And forgive us OUR trespasses IN THE SAME WAY WE forgive those who trespass against us."

Think about this: What purpose do grudges serve?  What purpose does our anger serve?  What do these two do to the ministry you have?  Yes, each of us has a ministry. We are to be the example of Christ in this world.  How can we be the example of Christ when we are unwilling to forgive?

Have you ever thought about the things we do instead of forgiving?  Let me tell you some of the things I have done. Stopped speaking to them....I would talk about them, but not to them. I would avoid going to places I thought they might be. I would, on occasion, ask God to punish them for what they had done to offend me.  Any of these sound familiar?

What God showed me when I prayed that He would punish them, was the heavy burden I was carrying.  Holding onto grudges is like pushing a car uphill with the emergency brake on.  It would be much easier to get inside and drive it uphill, but means we'd have to let go of the burden.  We MUST learn to let go of the anger.  We MUST learn to let go of the grudges. We MUST learn to love others as Christ loves us (Jesus died for them just as He did for us).

When we truly forgive, we take away the power that our enemy has over us.