While others slept, I lay awake. Sweltering temperatures disrupted my nocturnal rest. In the wakefulness, my mind dropped anchor on the phrase forgive your brother from your heart and a thought process began to take shape.
Foundational Principles on Forgiveness
Forgiveness is at the core of my salvation.
Forgiveness is an intentional act of grace where I extend to another person what God has extended to me.
No one ever earns a PHD in forgiveness, yet in the laboratory of life, we each experience ongoing, on-the-job training.
Forgiveness requires obedience, is always by faith, and remains essential to mental, physical, spiritual, and emotional health.
Forgiveness portrays a posture of humility.
“Forgiveness never goes to a deserving person.” (R. Stevens)
Concerning forgiveness, after Jesus, a human individual is the primary focus.
Then, led by the Holy Spirit, my thinking climbed upward to a new vista of
What If’s regarding the transaction of forgiveness:
What if we made forgiveness more about God and galvanized our focus on Him?
What if forgiveness became an act of worship and took the form of a love offering to Him?
What if we prayed, “Father, because You are King of my heart—and out of a desperate desire to obey You—I worship you by extending forgiveness.”?
What if?
Just a thought . . .
Living With Eternal Intentionality®
“And this is eternal life, that they may know You the only true God, and Jesus Christ
whom You have sent” (John 17:3).
. . . forgive your brother from your heart (Matthew 18:35b)
With which of the Foundational Principles on Forgiveness do you most identify?
What new personal lesson is God teaching you about forgiveness?
