Forgiveness: Commanded and Unconditional

One of the most life changing and soul altering practices in all of life is the act of forgiveness.  What is it?  It is the act of freeing someone from further obligation to you who has in one way or another hurt you in the past by offering forgiveness.   Forgiveness not only frees the person who has inflicted pain or injustice upon us but it also frees us from the toxic nature of repressed anger, bitterness, and all the negative energy associated with an unforgiving spirit in our own lives.  

  
Listen to what Jesus told his followers. "For if you forgive others their trespasses, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses."

We who have been forgiven of our sins in Jesus Christ ought to be the first to want to offer the same opportunity of forgiveness to someone who has either offended or hurt us.  However, that is not always the case.  One thing is certain, what ihs been commanded is not really optional for a believer in Jesus Christ.  I learned this first hand in my own life many years ago when I was a young believer.  

My Dad, a physician died when I was six years old.  About three years later after my stepmother had successfully had my father's will legally altered she orphaned my sister, brother and me when I was ten years old   From the time my stepmother put us out, I never lived with my brother or sister again for the rest of my life.  By the time I was fifteen, I had been in six foster homes and a school for orphaned boys. All I ever wanted was to get my family back.  However that was not God's plan for my life, and by the time I was eighteen, my sister was murdered by a serial killer.  This effectively ended my hope of ever getting my family back.  I buried my sister's ashes beside my dad's grave.

When I was nineteen, through a series of God events, I was brought to Christ by an old family friend from back in my childhood.  We ended up living in the same house near my Dad's old property, growing in Christ together for the first year of my walk as a Christ follower.  During that year I walked the old property I grew up on and loved every walk, but one day I realized that the memories of childhood bliss had turned to anger.  I stopped growing as a Christian.  I knew I had to come to grips with forgiving the one who taken my childhood, my inheritance, and my family away from me. A few days later, I got down on why knees and did it!  I forgave my stepmother for everything.  And by the way, I keep doing it every time the enemy throws it back in my face.  Two weeks later, I surrendered my life to Jesus for whatever he wanted, a decision which would have not been possible before.

Since that day forty-three years ago,  I have received back everything that was taken from me in spades.  I have a beautiful and loving wife, four great kids who love the Lord, and eleven grandchildren!  I got my family back and a whole lot more!  As I ponder that this morning, my mind goes back to that day and that hour when I got down on my knees and forgave.  God and His plan opened to me.  Do you need to forgive?  God has plans for you too, and it's not too late.