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Monday, March 3, 2008

The Importance of Forgiving Others

Mark 11:25-26

All of us at some point, have to deal with the issue of unforgiveness. When we allow a bitter spirit to lodge in our souls, where it grows and festers, it becomes both painful and destructive. Unforgiveness lies at the root of many of the physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual problems we see today.

The apostle Paul wrote, "Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you" (Eph. 4:31-32). When Paul spoke of bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor and evil speaking, he was describing the ugly manifestations of a "spirit of unforgiveness."

A spirit of unfogiveness goes beyond a temporary unwillingness to forgive, the period between the time a person gets hurt and the time he forgives the one who hurt him. A spirit of unforgiveness develops when the one hurt chooses to remain in that unforgiving state.

People who develop this nasty spirit often say, "I just don't think I could ever forgive that." They make the statement when they feel they have been treated in such an unjust, unfair, harmful way that they simply can't let go of the pain.

We are all going to be hurt, Every one of us has been hurt, are hurting now, or are going to be hurt by somebody. The only way we can insulate ourselves against being hurt is to completely remove ourselves from the possibility of love. To risk love is to risk hurt.

Hurt is unavoidable, but we can deal with hurt. No pain is too deep or too wdidespread to lie beyond the power of God's forgiveness, working in and through us. Unforgiveness is a choice we make with the will- and it's a devastatingly bad choice, not only for the relationship, not only for the cause of Christ, but also for the one who refuses to forgive.

We shouldn't forget that it was our loving Savior, Jesus Christ, who ended a story on the necessity of forgiveness with these words: "And his master was angry, and delivered him to the tortures until he should pay all that was due to him. So my Heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses" (Matt. 18:34-35).

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