Forgiven, So Forgive

We have a tough time with forgiveness, don’t we?

It’s one of those things we all want from other people, but when someone hurts us, it seems to be “different.”

We believe that they some how hurt us differently or more significantly or we rationalize why they did it on purpose or how they had it out for us.

We all want to be forgiven, but deep down, we often times don’t want to forgive.

I know it sounds really elementary, but one of the key reasons we fail to forgive or we always have a justification for our unwillingness to forgive is that we forget all we’ve been forgiven for. There’s a verse in Matthew that outlines this for us. It’s a part of the Lord’s prayer that we so often recite without thinking much about it…

Forgive us the wrongs we have done, as we forgive the wrongs that others have done to us. (Matthew 6:12)

Did you catch that? Forgiveness happens in a cyclical pattern… at least it should.

We’re forgiven so we can forgive.

Forgiven, so forgive.

I don’t know if there’s someone today that you need to pray for or reach out to in order to forgive them, but don’t wait. You’ve been forgiven much so forgive much.