To Forgive or Not To Forgive, That Is The Question

by Olga Hermans

Life Is An Adventure In Forgiveness / Norman Cousins

Always forgive your enemies – nothing annoys them so much / Oscar Wilde

He who is devoid of the power to forgive, is devoid of the power to love /
Martin Luther King Jr.

Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future / Paul Boese

Forgiveness is a powerful thing. Jesus himself said this in Matt.6:14-15 when you pray, forgive other people. If you don’t forgive other people neither will your Father who is in heaven forgive you.
You know, our salvation depends upon forgiveness; it depends on God forgiving us of our sin. Jesus added a little emphasis to it and said, if you don’t forgive others your Father in heaven cannot forgive you.

You don’t want to have anything that blocks God’s forgiveness in your life. That’s why it is so important for us to forgive. It is important to realize that in holding on to unforgiveness we are letting that person that caused the heartache or the pain to continue to control us.

When we forgive, we release ourselves from that control and we release that person into the hands of God. God can take care of that person.
“If you don’t get bitter, you get better” Billy Joe Daugherty. That is a great advice, because we all experience things in life that we don’t like or get really stressed about. Just don’t get bitter and you will make it.

You have the blood of Jesus, you have the Word of God, you have the name of Jesus, you have the Holy Spirit who empowers you. You have everything that you need to overcome in this life and to help other people. But the one thing that can stop it all is unforgiveness.

That counts for all of us whether in our family, on our job in all our relationships. If we don’t get bitter, we will make it in life.
People that are forgiving people are happier people and they are easier to be around. People that are unforgiving are hard to be around, don’t you think so? They carry a chip on their shoulder, they are suspicious of everybody and it is really hard for them to have healthy relationships.

There are a lot of people with a lot of baggage; when they were a child they were abused and are even now in abusive relationships. We sometimes think of many reasons why we don’t want to forgive somebody. One of the reasons is because we think that they don’t deserve to be forgiven, but God will always quickly remind us that we didn’t deserve to be forgiven either. God chose to forgive us.
The more we hold on to the things that we call “our rights”, the more we destroy the things that God is trying to do in our life. God is a good God; He would never ask us to forgive if He hadn’t given us the ability and the grace to do it.

When we forgive, relationships can be restored. When we walk in an attitude of forgiveness, we walk in that love walk. The bible says that LOVE can then cover a multitude of sin, so when we are around friends that we have forgiven there is peace, because we are walking in the love of God.

Forgiveness is definitely not a feeling; you always have to make sure that you choose to forgive. Every day we have opportunities to take offense or to get offended and get bitter towards somebody and something that is said. God tells us to put on love, put on forgiveness, choose to forgive and walk in love.

When we do forgive, something happens in our life. When we release that hurt and that offense, God will begin to work in our life.
And even many times after we have forgiven somebody, those feelings of anger and hurt will still come back toward that person; we are humans and those things happen. But we have to continually make a choice to forgive, that means I choose to forgive that person. When those feelings will try to come up again and we feel that anger rising towards that person we make a choice to say: “God, I forgive them and I release them to you”.

The power of forgiveness releases the power of God to work in their lives and to work in your life. Forgiveness brings us freedom. If someone has done something to you or abandoned you; the best thing you can do for your own heart and for your own future is to release and forgive them.

The reality is that you might be able to choose to hold on to that unforgiveness in your heart or in your life, but I want to tell you that the price is not worth it. It is not worth the price of holding on to that unforgiveness and hindering the things that God wants to do in your life or hindering the blessing that God wants to bring to your family.
I want to encourage you today that you make a choice and decide that you are going to forgive so that God will bring everything to your life that He wants to bring.