Forgiveness Is A Real Thing You Know

 I know that all of us have been hurt by someone at one point in our lives. If you haven't I can assure you that you will in the future. It stinks and the pain is hard to bear but rest assured that the only one who is hurt by this anger is you. I know that things are hard now and that even when life is easy the hard times are just ahead and will rear their ugly head like never before. The devil tries more than ever now to break Christians of their faith. All he wants to do is see us fall to the ground in anger, despair, and resentment. Just a little while ago he was winning in my life, but I had to stop myself and think there is no reason for me to be angry because God has reasons and God has plans that are greater than I can imagine and when I'm angry and resentful those plans can't be brought to fruition through me. God is going to complete His work through someone but if you're too angry to be used then you might just miss out on an opportunity to spread the gospel and how sad is that. Don't let hate stop you.


One of the best stories of forgiveness in the Bible has always been the adulterous woman. A lot of scholars will tell you that this story is actually not real and was added to the Bible later, however; I keep coming back to the fact that this is God's holy word so why would He allow something to be put in there that He doesn't believe is true? The answer for me is that He wouldn't. Anyways, in John chapter 8 there was a woman that was publicly humiliated for her sins. She was dragged into the center square by the disciples who were going to stone her to death. Jesus, being the wonderful savior that He is, told the men "let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her" (John 8:7). All of the disciples knew they were guilty just as much as she was and slowly each one of them dropped the stone and walked away because the only righteous man who has ever lived is Jesus Christ. As he stood there with the woman I can only imagine what she was thinking. She was guilty! They had caught her red handed, yet this man who she'd never met was going to save her life. Jesus simply stood up and told her that her sins were forgiven and she was to now go and live a life without sin. My friends it is this simple. Jesus forgave every single one of us for our sins, so what gives us the right to not be able to forgive others?


All Jesus is asking us to do is forgive the ones who wronged us. He didn't ask you to die for them because He's already done that. Yes the pain is terrible for right now and I know all you probably want to do is hit somebody for doing this to you, but remember that there will be joy and peace given to you by God because He promises that to us. It is not our job to judge people nor is it our job to decide punishments, as followers of Christ we have to obey His commands for us and even though we may not like it God wants us to forgive others more for our own sake than anyone else's. People are rude, life is hard, and times get to be more than we can handle but give the hurt and sadness to the one person who you know can take it and forgive others because everyone is fighting a battle you know nothing about.


May the love and peace of God be with you always,

Leah Carpenter 



Comments