Forgiveness Is Taught in The Our Father

“Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.” – Luke 11:4

It’s clear that in order to expect God’s forgiveness, we must forgive others. That can be hard to do sometimes, especially when we feel our anger or hurt is justified. But the Our Father does not say, “forgive if it is easy”. God says, “forgive”.

But there are things we can do to help ourselves to forgive others, no matter how justified we feel.

The first is to make a decision to forgive them. Forgiveness is a choice. We have to start by making that choice.

The second is to ask God for help. Sometimes forgiving a person is more than we can do on our own. This is when we need to ask God’s Help, and He is happy to give it 🙂

And there is a third thing we can do help. We refuse to be lured into thinking about the past offence. We are human and sometimes we will catch our mind drifting back to past times, but we don’t have to let it. We can choose to think of other things. The Holy Spirit can help us with this, but we need to ask Him!

And there is a fourth thing, we can remember how much God has forgiven us. And we can focus on how much Jesus suffered for us so that we might be forgiven and enter Heaven. Whatever sin someone committed against us-it is clearly less than Jesus sacrificed for us 🙂

And lastly, forgiveness frees us! We need to remember that as well. Whatever the sin, it doesn’t just cause us anger-it causes pain. By forgiving the other person, that anger and pain is released and will eventually fade :). Leaving even more room in our hearts for God to fill 🙂

Feelings just are; but forgiveness is a choice, not a feeling.

God forgives us; we need to forgive others 🙂