You Are Not the Only One

#Forgiveness #Two #Way #OneWay #JesusIsTheWay

¹⁴ Even so, it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish. ¹⁵ Moreover, if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. ¹⁶ But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. ¹⁷ And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church: but if he [neglects] to hear the church, let him be unto thee as a heathen man and a publican. ¹⁸ Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

Hurts do not have to last for a lifetime. I thought about this last as I was closing out my day and after watching something that destroyed a person’s life. Why? They would not let it go! So, here goes. Did someone hurt us 2 seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, or years ago? Let’s just say, yes!

Did they apologize? Let’s just say no! So, here we sit and every time we are with that person, in a group, we bring up their behavior that hurt us so long ago. We do not address the person. We are not willing to forgive – if in fact there is anything to forgive-but we keep putting out hypothetical scenarios that are not so hypothetical. How does this help to build trust and foster forgiveness? It does not. Don’t get me wrong, the pain will last and it will stay there for a while, but each time that we give it to Jesus, it dulls and dulls, and blurs and blurs. What? Ok, so I have made a graphic and posted it behind a text. I want everyone to see the graphic, but the text is more important to me. So I use the option in, let’s say PowerPoint, and I manipulate that graphic until I can just about see it.  Then the message I want to be seen is more visible.

I thought about how Jesus would respond in this scenario. It was really a no-brainer!. How many times do I sin against my Lord without batting an eye? How many times does he forgive me? Let us try to apply that same measure of forgiveness to others, shall we?

Prayer; Lord give me a willing heart to be as forgiving to others as you are to me every second of every day. Amen.