It’s For Your Own Good
When my daughter was about three and did something wrong, she would come crying and say, “Dad, I forgive you.” What she actually meant was “Dad, forgive me.” To forgive and to be forgiven are life lessons we will have to keep learning for as a long as we live.
Apostle Paul wrote, “Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.” (Colossians 3:13, NIV). Forgiveness is not the only way of dealing with those who have wronged us, but it surely is the best way. Forgiveness means we release our offender from legal and moral obligation. It is to release them from liability to suffer punishment or penalty. It’s the decision to stop being angry or bitter toward them about something; to stop blaming or wanting to punish. Pingleton said, “To forgive is to give up one’s right to hurt back.” Forgiveness is not forgetting or denying that an injury has occurred. As one pastor wrote, it means we “fully acknowledge the wrong that was done to us, grieve over what has been lost, and yet eventually let the person off the hook. We release them. We let them go. Not for their sake, but for our own and for Christ’s.” Refusing to forgive is refusing to heal. “Forgiveness is not about fixing the other person, it is about your injury; it doesn’t make the other person right, it makes you free,” said Stormie Omartian
When God commands us to forgive, it is for His glory and for our own good as well. In Christ He showed us what forgiveness means and gives us the power to do it because we can’t do it in our own strength.
So, who is God asking you to forgive? Bitterness holds your soul in bondage and hinders God’s blessings from flowing to you and through you. The biggest favour you can do yourself today is to forgive the person who has wronged you. I promise you that you won’t regret this decision. It is the most freeing, liberating thing you can do. Do you want to be free? The choice is yours.
Duncan Malalo
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