March 6, 2025
C. S. Lewis once said, “To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.” It has also been said that forgiveness is the key that unlocks the door of resentment and the handcuffs of hate and breaks the chains of bitterness.
If you are seeking to free your life from resentment and bitterness, the first step is to forgive—and to truly forgive someone, you have to choose to let go of whatever it is you are harboring in your heart against that person. That may be hard to do, but if you allow those negative emotions to take root in your heart, they will grow and bring unhappiness into your own life.
Jesus gave us an example of radical forgiveness from the cross. After being whipped, mocked, and hung on the cross, even as He was suffering and dying an excruciating death, He said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34).
No matter what hurts, offenses, or personal loss you have experienced due to the actions of others, as Christians, we are called to forgive. In the Lord’s Prayer, He taught us to pray that God will “forgive us our sins [or debts or trespasses] as we have forgiven those who sin against us [our debtors]” (Matthew 6:12). After the prayer, He goes on to say, “For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you” (Matthew 6:14–15).
Forgiveness starts with God’s love—a love so vast and unconditional that He gave His own Son to suffer and die for us, so that we could receive His forgiveness. God’s love is great enough to not only heal every hurt, but to empower us to extend His love and forgiveness to those who have hurt us.
Sometimes we need a little reminder that the best gift we can give others and ourselves is forgiveness. We can follow the example of Jesus and offer others forgiveness as he forgives us of our daily sins.—Country Living
Bob Hoover, a famous test pilot and frequent performer at air shows, was returning to his home in Los Angeles from an air show in San Diego. As described in the magazine Flight Observation, at three hundred feet in the air, both engines of his plane suddenly stopped. By deft maneuvering he managed to land the aircraft, but it was badly damaged, although nobody was hurt.
Hoover’s first act after the emergency landing was to inspect the airplane fuel. Just as he suspected, the World War II propeller plane he had been flying had been fueled with jet fuel rather than gasoline. Upon returning to the airport, he asked to see the mechanic who had serviced his airplane.
The young man was sick with the agony of his mistake. Tears streamed down his face as Hoover approached. He had just caused the loss of a very expensive plane and had almost caused the loss of three lives as well. You can imagine Hoover’s anger. One could anticipate the tongue-lashing that this proud and precise pilot would unleash for such carelessness.
But Hoover didn’t scold the mechanic; he didn’t even criticize him. Instead, he put his big arm around the man’s shoulder and said, “To show you I’m sure that you’ll never do this again, I want you to service my F-51 tomorrow.”—Dale Carnegie1
One of the most difficult things a Christian will face is offering genuine forgiveness to those who have deeply hurt us. When Jesus commands us to love our enemies and offer our forgiveness to them, it’s hard for us to believe that He knew what He was talking about. “Jesus didn’t know my dad” or “Jesus doesn’t understand the depth of my hurt.”
Yet, He does understand, and He commands us to forgive precisely because He understands. Jesus knows that even the deepest wounds can heal through His blood. Which is why I love the story of Corrie ten Boom’s encounter with the forgiving love of Jesus in her amazing book The Hiding Place.
Corrie ten Boom worked against the Nazis in World War II, hiding Jews in her home. When she was caught, she was sent to a concentration camp where she was stripped of her dignity, saw her father and her sister (Betsie) die, and suffered more at the hands of other people than we could possibly imagine. This is precisely why her encounter with forgiveness is so memorable:
It was at a church service in Munich that I saw him, the former S.S. man who had stood guard at the shower door in the processing center at Ravensbrück. He was the first of our actual jailers that I had seen since that time. And suddenly it was all there—the roomful of mocking men, the heaps of clothing, Betsie’s pain-blanched face.
He came up to me as the church was emptying, beaming and bowing. “How grateful I am for your message, Fraulein,” he said. “To think that, as you say, He has washed my sins away!”
His hand was thrust out to shake mine. And I, who preached so often to the people in Bloemendaal the need to forgive, kept my hand at my side. Even as the angry, vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them. Jesus Christ had died for this man; was I going to ask for more? Lord Jesus, I prayed, forgive me and help me to forgive him. I tried to smile, I struggled to raise my hand. I could not. I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of warmth or charity. And so again I breathed a silent prayer. Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me Your forgiveness.
As I took his hand, the most incredible thing happened. From my shoulder along my arm and through my hand a current seemed to pass from me to him, while into my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me. And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world’s healing hinges, but on His. When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself.—The Hiding Place
Forgiveness can be hard, but it is not in our forgiveness “that the world’s healing hinges, but on His.” We are given the opportunity to participate in the love that Jesus extends to the world with our forgiveness. I find this a great encouragement: that Christ gives us the love we need to forgive as we practice forgiveness.—Matthew Crocker2
The person who is living by grace sees this vast contrast between his own sins against God and the offenses of others against him. He forgives others because he himself has been so graciously forgiven.—Jerry Bridges
By the practice of forgiveness we have the privilege of being a living witness to the One we most love, and who has loved us eternally and sacrificially.—Bryan Chapell
If we really want to love, we must learn how to forgive.—Mother Teresa
Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.”—Matthew 18:21–22
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.”—Matthew 5:43–45
Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another, just as God also forgave you in Christ.—Ephesians 4:32
Dear heavenly Father, how our hearts struggle to forgive wholly and fully. We thank You for demonstrating such forgiveness by graciously extending it to us. Help us forgive freely and let go of bitterness, and grant us the strength to trust Your way is best. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.—Meredith Houston Carr
Published on Anchor March 2025. Read by John Laurence.
1 Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends & Influence People (first published October 1, 1936).
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