Genesis 43-45
Matthew 12:24-50
“Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.’” Luke 23:34
Someone made an offense to us and that offense caused hurt—physically, emotionally, mentally or spiritually—in our lives. As Christians, who have experienced pain in a real tangible way, it is okay to grieve, to mourn and to lament. In our relationship with Jesus, there is room for us to bring our hurt to God. Some of us may feel numb from the pain and just want to forget everything, but we cannot sweep what we went through under the rug. We have to understand that no matter what we have gone through, we have to remember that we cannot abandon or give up the biblical call to forgive. It is commanded by Christ, but not only commanded by Him, it was also modeled by Christ Himself.
When we think of forgiveness, a mistake that some of us make is that we dismiss or diminish the anger and the pain. But the truth is, we are all humans, and human beings have emotions. In fact, God created us to have feelings and emotions. If we have gone through pain, injury or hurt in our life, one of the most dangerous things that we can do is to quickly dismiss the pain that we experienced. We say to ourselves, “You know what, just forgive, suck it up, pray about it and be the bigger person, a more mature Christian.” Yet, if we altogether dismiss the pain that we are going through, either directly or indirectly, what we end up doing is diminishing, devaluing and disregarding the real emotions that we are experiencing in our lives.
If we are truly honest about how much we have been hurt, some of us may then feel that the pain is too deep, and we have been hurt repeatedly that it is impossible to forgive. While there is room for our anger and pain in our relationship with God, this is not where God wants us to stay for the eternity of our lives, this is not the last chapter of our lives.
While we live in a society where human feelings and emotions seem to be the drivers of the decisions that we make, whatever the issue may be, there is room for our feelings, room for our emotions, but we are not ruled by our emotions and our feelings. We are not exclusively guided by our feelings and our emotions; we are guided by the lordship of Jesus Christ and all things must surrender unto Him.
Forgiveness is a process that we do not do alone, but with God, in community. May we ask God whom we need to forgive, and consider praying about it with a trusted brother or sister in Christ
PRAYER: Precious Jesus, I come before You, laying down my honest feelings and my real hurt. I ask for Your guidance in the process of forgiveness. Thank You, Lord.
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