Forgiveness Is Necessary

Forgiveness Is Necessary “For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.” Matthew 6:14 I have written many devotionals about forgiveness, but it is such an important issue that I need to write one more. All of us have had instances where someone has done something that has harmed us in some way, and we have had trouble forgiving them. God is very specific in His instructions as to how we are to handle these types of situations. The scripture above is pretty plain as to how God views us not being able to forgive someone. Forgiving someone is one of the more difficult things to overcome in most of our lives, but if we are not able to overcome this obstacle, it will be difficult for us to have real peace in our life. For our emotional and spiritual health, we must let the past go. It doesn’t do any of us any good to go around hating somebody, nor does it make any sense to stay angry for something somebody did to us in the past. We need to be careful that our bitterness and lack of forgiveness does not contaminate others around us, as they are influenced by the way we handle a bad situation in our lives. If we are going to be happy with ourselves we have to learn to forgive others as Jesus commanded. When we don’t forgive, we’re not hurting the other person and we’re not hurting God. We’re only hurting ourselves. If we want to have the peace and happiness in our lives that God wants us to have, we must forgive. Bitterness and pent up anger for something that has happened to us will keep God from operating in our lives and will keep our prayers from being answered. Once we decide to release the bitterness that we have stored and let it go, we will then be able to reap God’s full blessings for our lives. Robert W. Brock My Daily Devotional Volume Seven​ June 24