Forgiveness

I think forgiveness is an amazing thing, but in all honesty it's one of the toughest thing I have ever had to work on. This year we had a program called Life Action come to our church and God revealed to me unforgiveness in my heart that I had buried and I had no idea was there. It was turning me bitter. I'm thankful God showed me because it's something I needed to deal with. I am still working on it and it's really hard. It isn't easy for me to let go of hurt in my past and to let go of what people have done to hurt me. In my heart, I know it is what God is calling me to do or He wouldn't have revealed it to me. In fact, even without revealing it, it is what God asks us to do. To forgive. Christ forgave us, how can we not give that gift to other people in our lives. I am reminded of the passage where Peter asks Jesus how many time he should forgive his brother. 7 times? Jesus tells Peter not 7 times, but 77 times. (Matthew 18:21-22) He is saying that we should always forgive. No matter what. No Excuses. No Exceptions.

I was thinking today and realized how bad our world would be without forgiveness. Could you possible imagine a Mother or Father refusing to forgive their child[ren] because they did something wrong? This world would be chaos, let alone survive if there wasn't forgiveness. If we didn't have forgiveness families would be broken and wouldn't stay a family, friends wouldn't last very long. We are human, we aren't perfect, we make mistakes. We NEED forgiveness. God knows we need forgiveness and it's so important to God he has it throughout the bible. In the beginning of the bible, Genesis talks about two brothers, Jacob and Esau. Isaac, the father, was close to death and the older child would get the inheritance. Jacob and Esau were twins, but Esau came out first. Jacob wanted the big inheritance and Rebecca, the mother, helped Jacob with the scheme to fool Isaac into giving Jacob the inheritance. Jacob ended up running for his life, but returned many years later. Jacob was scared but when Esau and Jacob met, Esau showed Jacob forgiveness. 

There is probably times in life where you may have done something wrong and was scared to tell the truth. Sometimes people give you a reaction you wouldn't except, like Esau did with Jacob.