Forgive One Another (Daily Devotional)

Shalom and welcome to our episode of Living Supernaturally. Thank you for joining us day after day as we have been looking at a series on the ‘one another’ commands. I trust that this is useful and helpful and good for us as we engage with our own relationships, wherever we maybe. For our devotion today, we are looking at forgive one another. Scripture says in Colossians chapter 3, verse 13, ‘Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.’ One of the biggest ingredients of healthy relationships and something that should be a hallmark for every Christian is forgiveness. The very foundation of Christianity is based on forgiveness. There maybe times in our relationships where we are confronted by people who really hurt us, by people sometimes who repeatedly hurt us. When all the while it maybe our duty to forgive, yet in our hearts we are filled with bitter emotions of anger, of pain, of hurt, of deep-seated resentment. This is something that breaks a relationship and these are causes of breaking a relationship. When people hold on to these negative emotions, find it hard to let go, we find that relationships are severed. Jesus tells us in Mathew that if you are going to worship and you suddenly remember that you brother has something against you, Jesus commands, leave everything, go and reconcile to your brother and then come back, that’s how high in priority Jesus talks about forgiveness and that how high in priority forgiveness is in relationships. Before you go to God, you need to forgive your brother so that you can come to God in the right mind and spirit. There is this story in the Old Testament of Jacob and Esau, we see it is an illustration of the way forgiveness restores such a fractured relationship. We see Jacob had wronged his brother, had stolen his blessing, had taken off his birthright and we see Jacob fled for his life because of his conscience. But years later, we read that Esau forgives Jacob and no longer demands a payment or a restitution but comes to him with love, willingly, with forgiveness extended and we see that relationship again being restored. Nothing promotes the unity of a relationship like the way forgiveness does. When we choose to forgive someone, what are we indicating? We indicate that the relationship or the person is far greater than the offense that was caused. God is pleased when we live in harmony with our brothers, with people who have hurt us because it glorifies Him when we forgive as He forgave us. Extending forgiveness to a family member restores maybe relationships in a marriage, restores the union of people and brings about trust and love. We learn to forgive, we extend forgiveness only because of the way God forgave us. We know that God forgave us by dying on the cross so that we would be restored back into a relationship with Him and we are called to do the same. Who are you called to forgive? Let’s uphold that person in mind as we pray together. Let’s pray, Heavenly Father, we ask that you would give us the grace to forgive our brother, our sister, our neighbor who have faulted us. May we bold to let go, to release this pain and take on the love that you have poured into our hearts. We are able to forgive only because of your love. We release the person, we release people who we have held back in our mind, in our thoughts. Thank you for the gift of forgiveness. Thank you for forgiving us, in Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

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