Forgiveness - what it is, and what it isn't
I know I've covered a bit about forgiveness before; what it is and isn't. But here, I also want to cover more about why and even more importantly, how we should forgive. I have mentioned before that forgiveness forgives someone for a past hurt. It does not require you to have that person in your life again . The person does not necessarily even need to know you have forgiven him or her; that's between you and God. It also does not require you to put any future trust in that person. Here I'd like to cover the motivation for forgiveness. It's simple: we should forgive because God forgave us first. Consider all the sins I've done against heaven; there are countless of those. Because these sins are forgiven via Christ's death on the cross, then surely likewise I should forgive those who have sinned against me. Indeed, the Lord's Prayer says ..."forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us." The word "as" is key here....