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and forgive us our debts as we also forgive our debtors.
How much thought have you put into forgiveness? There are some out there who really don’t think about it, they just forgive and forget sort of thing. Although that can seem easy for some, for others it is incredibly hard. Even for those who forgive easily, they can have the future discomfort of “did I really forgive him?”.
God has forgiven us, from everything past, present and future. That was what Christ died for. This is what He suffered for, all of the punishments, all of the curses, He took them all upon Himself so that we don’t have to.
But what about you? You’ve been forgiven all this debt, do you also easily forgive others? Are you guilty of sin and have not been forgiven yourself? For that matter, have you forgiven yourself?
To forgive is not about forgetting past actions. It’s not about letting those who hurt you near you again. Sometimes there are things that are done to you that are so horrible that you never want to see that person again. Forgiveness is about letting go of the debt owed. If someone hurt you, sometimes people want them to make amends for the evil done, others want payback. God wants us to leave payback in His hands, and let go of the debt because Christ already paid for it all.
Think about this for a moment. If someone owes you something, you can make yourself crazy or angry waiting for that someone to pay it back. If instead, you are of the payback camp, you can easily become hateful and bitter trying to pay this person back. God knew the human condition, He knew what sin would do to us, so he gave the command to forgive. Not for the forgiven, but for ourselves!
Now, you say to yourself but you don’t understand what this person did to me! Rape, murder, abuse, violation of liberties, betrayal, all these things are horrid. But what about Christ? He suffered so much to take the punishment of all these sins upon Himself for all people! And what did He say?
Jesus said this when He was hanging on a cross, crucified by the very people He came to help. He had bean beaten, cut, bruised, ripped apart by so many, then put to shame, and hung up. So much evil was released on Him, yet still He chose to forgive!
This is no easy task! Don’t think for a moment that all evil must be forgiven easily, but also don’t let yourself be tricked. All evil is to be forgiven regardless! Do you have anyone you haven’t forgiven?
What about forgiving yourself? Many of the people I know live in guilt, or in fear. Their failures haunt them. Choices they made they feel they shouldn’t have and keep putting themselves down. What has God said about forgiveness? That it’s forgiven! Don’t be fooled, guilt has two camps.
- Godly guilt, conviction, which leads to repentance
- Evil guilt, self-destroying, which leads nowhere
The Godly guilt is there to guide us, to show us that if we did something wrong, we should do something about it and repent so as to try to not do it again. But the other guilt is from the devil himself. It’s an attack to keep you out of the good fight. If you’re too busy wrapped up feeling sorry about yourself, you can’t effectively serve God. You are forgiven, of all sins, of all mistakes, of all things! Period, there is nothing else. This is what God has to say about it, so why let yourself be guilty? If God forgives everything, what is there to feel guilty about?!
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Great blog!
Thanks for the fabulous wisdom!
<3-Cami from First Day of My Life Life
very well said
Cute Blog! I loved it so much I decided to follow! Happy Monday!! I would love for you to stop by and check out my blog as well! If you like it you can follow back! Thanks! Hope to blog with you again soon!
http://heavenlysavings.net
Very nice descriptions! To have complete forgiveness is so difficult to do.
"Forgiving is not forgetting" really is tricky because I would think that in order to really forgive, you must learn that art of forgetting. It's the only way to get past whatever it is you have to forgive. Otherwise, you would most likely always get bothered by it. Thank you for enlightening us with this post.
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Thanks for stopping by my blog.
I used to be a Christian. Great read.
Following you from the hop!
Forgiveness is important to learn for a whole bunch of reasons. Sometimes, saying it out loud really helps, I find.
Forgiveness is such a hard thing, and it is on an ongoing basis!
Thanks for linking up with the blog hop!
http://www.theknitwitbyshair.com
stopping by from the Alexa blog hop. Following you.
http://tamis-ramblings.blogspot.com
New follower from bloghop on GFC, take a look at my site http://www.freesocial2011.blogspot.com
Thanks for linking up with us at MFm. Returning your follow from The Thrifty Things. Thanks for discussing forgiveness. You did a great job with this post.
Following back. Sorry it took so long. But, we were out of power for over a week and we went out of town during the outage. Have a blessed day!
Following back! Thank you so much! I hope you have a great day! Keep an eye out on my blog, I'm trying to bring back my Seeking Virtue Sunday hop.
God bless!
Following you from Money Savvy Michelle GFC hop – hope you'll follow back
http://savingbythesea.com, Saving by the Sea on FB and gracie680
on Twitter.
thank for linking up with us!
An excellent reminder of how we should be regarding forgiveness. Human nature is to hold on to the pain and not let go. It can make a person crazy.
Check out….Blah to Hooray…Random Tuesday Thoughts
Visitng from Tuesday’s blog hop…
Cathy Kennedy, Children's Author
The Tale of Ole Green Eyes
Thanks for stopping by my blog following u back:)
Hi there, I just "liked" you on FB and followed you on google friends. Blessings to you and consider yourself invited to follow me at http://www.nanahood.com!
I'm following from the Totally Tuesday hop!
Michelle @ Things Sent My Way
Forgiveness is not always easy but it sure is worth it. Life is too short!
New follower
http://emismom.blogspot.com/
Thanks for the inspiration.
New follower from Tiggerific Tuesday.
Hope you follow back
I love this post! Thanks for sharing!
Great post! Thanks for participating in the Subscriber hop at MoneySavvyMichelle.com. I followed you back on all network and via RSS. Have a great week!
New Follower from Take It Form Me: Welcome Wednesday. Thanks for the great read!
The Miller’s from
Prezidential Life
http://prezidentiallife.blogspot.com/
Hi there,
And I am looking forward to reading along, learning more about the author behind this blog, and sharing thoughts on faith. 
I am visiting you from Welcome Wednesday and am now following you. Your blog is so refreshing; I can always appreciate new blogs to read, but those that are driven by faith are even better. There is so much that I feel that I can learn and oftentimes I feel like I was led here – to this blog – for a reason. So I am here.
Aloha,
Angie
Just found this site – always looking for Christian blogs. God bless!
Darlene
Life on the Franco Farm: The Difference “For” Makes