True Forgiveness

Over the last little while I’ve been learning a little about forgiveness. A lot of times I’ve thought that forgiveness is just being ok with whatever happened, but I came across a neat description of what forgiveness really is. From a book called, "The Peace Maker", "forgiveness may be described as a decision to make four promises:

"I will not dwell on this incident."
"I will not bring up this incident again and use it against you."
"I will not talk to others about this incident."
"I will not let this incident stand between us or hinder our personal relationship."

A neat little poem from the same source sums it up with:

Good thought,
Hurt you not,
Gossip never,
Friends forever.

This week was spiritual emphasis week here at PRBI. On Friday we had no classes and it was a day of prayer and fasting. In the afternoon we had a time of worship and celebrated communion. Before the communion, we had a time to examine ourselves and step out of the gym with anyone that we needed to resolve something with. It was so cool to see people walk out and then walk back in with smiles on their faces after having reconciled. I was challenged with reconciling with someone this week also. Maybe there is someone in your life who you need to be reconciled with. Or maybe you just need to forgive someone of something that you’ve unintentionally held against them. Whatever your situation is, God calls us to be reconciled to our brother before we offer our sacrifice of worship at the altar and before we celebrate communion. When we forgive others we always find a greater freedom than we had before, and God is pleased because He wants to forgive others, on the basis of His forgiveness of our sin. I just thought that this was interesting and hopefully it speaks to you also. God bless!