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A heart of forgiveness, C.S Lewis, Christ on earth, commanded to forgive others, conversations with my big brother, depressed, devil's job, forgive, Forgive yourself, Forgiving others, frustration, God has forgiven us our sins, grudges are a waste of perfect happiness, imperfect beings, imperfect world, JMM app, Joyce Meyer Ministries, Judas, make mistakes, Matthew 18:21-22, Matthew 6:14-15, persecuted, set yourself free, sometimes we win and some we lose, Steve Maraboli, to learn to love others you should first love yourself, unforgiving heart
I loveee conversations with my big bro!!!!!! and I loveee my Joyce Meyer Ministries phone (JMM) app!!
That said, this post was inspired by one of the devotional videos I recently watched on my JMM app and one of my recent big bro-lil sis convos.
There is the popular saying ” In forgiving others, you set yourself free”. I know it is not always easy to forgive especially when we are really hurt by someone’s actions and inaction whether consciously or not. You see the thing is, when someone hurts us or we are hurt by a situation and we hold on to that with an unforgiving heart, we indirectly hurt ourselves even more than we think we hurt that person by not forgiving them. Sometimes it could lead to people being depressed, bitter, angry, and putting out our frustration on others. We have so many people taking their anger and frustration (from an unforgiving heart) on others. I remember reading in the news of a young man who goes about trying to give other younger kids the HIV virus simply because years ago he contracted the virus from someone. Thank God he was eventually caught. I am sure you have heard on the news of someone going on a killing spree simply because a certain group of people killed their friend or family member. Again I know it hurts, but sticking with an unforgiving heart, only causes more harm to us and to others who might just be innocent.
We are imperfect beings in an imperfect world. We are all going to make mistakes! We are all going to do something that will hurt or upset a dear friend, a stranger, a family member, a co-worker….Likewise they are all at some point going to do something that will hurt or upset us. Even two people who are in love would do something that might upset the other.
“You see, in the time of Christ on Earth, many persecuted him. Even his own disciple denied him three times. His disciple Judas betrayed him and gave him away to be killed. But Despite all, He still died for our sins. Despite us forgetting about him sometimes, not giving Him the praise and adoration He deserves, not obeying Him…Despite everything and anything, He still loves and forgives us all!
AHA!! There is also one very important person we need to learn to forgive…Guess who? IT’S YOURSELF!! They say ‘to learn to love others you should first love yourself’ Yes! To learn to forgive others, you should first learn to forgive yourself! When you fall in sin, When you let yourself down. Forgive yourself.
My big bro says “God has forgiven us of our sins in advance. You’ve got to forgive yourself and move up! The devil’s job is to always make us feel bad about things we did wrong and wants to hold us down with them. Life/Christianity is a game, if you don’t practice, you can’t play and if you don’t play you can’t win…In practicing we make mistakes and in playing sometimes we win and some we lose”
As christians we are commanded to forgive others. We cannot go to our Heavenly Father in prayer while we still hold a grudge against another (Matthew 6: 14-15) and when others sin against us we are told to forgive them, not once, not twice….but many times. Matthew 18: 21-22. When His disciple asked how many times we should forgive, He said ‘not seven times but seventy times seven’
Found these quotes a couple of days ago and saved them on my phone. Will wrap this post with them.
- Grudges are a waste of perfect happiness ~ Unknown
- People are often unreasonable and self centered. Forgive them anyway ~ Mother Theresa
- To be a christian means to forgive them the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you ~ C.S Lewis
- The truth is unless you let go, unless you forgive yourself, unless you forgive the situation, unless you realize the situation is over, you cannot move forward ~ Steve Maraboli
- It is important to forgive ourselves for making mistakes. We need to learn from our errors and move on ~ Steve Maraboli
- Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies ~ Nelson Mandela
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