Forgive One Another - As Christ Forgives Us!

For the past 29 days, I have been doing a 40-day devotional called A Call to Die by David Nasser. It has been an amazing journey for the past month, and I encourage each and every one of you to try it! It covers many of the major topics about how to live as a Christian, but Nasser is straight to the point. He does not play around! He challenges you to go deeper into your faith and really live out your convictions day-by-day. Today, the morning devotional really hit me hard. It was about forgiving those who have hurt you. Over the past year, the Lord has taught me how to permanently forgive those who have really hurt me. I had raw emotions come to the surface, and many times, would end up bawling like a baby for a day or so. Then the Lord, with his amazing healing touch would heal my heart, and I would suddenly be able to forget the resentment I once harbored. For those of you who may not know, I have led a very troubled life, and I was hurt many, many times deeply along the way. This may be the greatest work besides salvation that God has done in my life. He has shown me how to truly love others unconditionally, and to remember how much he has forgiven me for, so I can forgive others who hurt me deeply.

I want to share something that God showed me (in my mind several months ago) that helps me to remember how to forgive others. I was sitting with my husband at lunch one day and I had a revelation about God's Word. I was told in my mind by God to think of the person that had hurt me the worst in my whole life, the instance that I could not seem to get over. For me, I was abused in childhood and it caused twenty years of depression, pain and attempted suicides. It made me feel worthless all those years, and really messed me up for a long time. The Lord said to me, now imagine yourself dying for that person in their place. He said..."That is what I did for you." When you had hurt me the worst of anyone I could ever imagine, I forgave you, and I did not hold resentment against you. That is how God expects us to forgive others, regardless of what they have done to us. Christ forgives us for more because we hurt him every day with our sinful actions. You see, God is real. God has a heart, the Bible says. By heart...I do not mean a physical heart, although Jesus came in the flesh, I mean a deep center of his being. He knows everything we do, and he sees every single time we hurt him. Sometimes, people do things to us "behind our backs," and we never know they have hurt us. But God always knows what you have done, and he has to face it head on. That is why he sent his Son to save us through his death on the cross!

Colossians 3:13 - "Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you."

Psalm 139:23-24 - "Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."

In this last verse, we see that God can know our heart, our thoughts, and that he knows if there is "any offensive way" in us. He is omniscient (all-knowing) and omnipresent (everywhere at once) as he is described in Psalm 139. So, when we are pleasing to God, he knows our good thought and good works....but this proves he also knows our evil thoughts, evil intents, evil planning, resentment, hatred, etc. We have to confess these sins to God, and allow him to heal us from them.

I pray today that if you are holding onto any grudge, or hatred, or resentment over people or things that hurt you in the past...turn them over to God today. Confess your sin to him. Ask him to forgive you and show you how to forgive others in light of the grace he has shown you. I pray that if you do not know Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, that you would read the Sinner's Prayer on this blog page, and pray to God from your heart to accept Jesus Christ! I pray blessings upon you all today in the name of Jesus, and pray that you will be happy, healthy and safe as you go on forgiving others!

In His amazing forgiving Love,

Sarah