The Power of Forgiveness – Part II

Yes, I do realize that I wrote on this once before, so just consider this Part II.

Recently, I was headed to the outlet mall. (Who doesn’t love an outlet mall?)  I was so excited, going in and out of the different stores! And then maybe taking home a “prize” at the end of the day.

And then the Lord began to deal with me about forgiveness!  And not just forgiveness, but the anger that sometimes comes with our unforgiveness.

When God speaks to our hearts, it’s usually not just for one thing, but he takes us back to other times we need to remember to forgive.  It may have been something that happened ten or twenty years ago.

And just in case I hadn’t heard Him clearly enough, I got in my car, turned on the radio, and they were talking about forgiveness!  And so I listened.

You see, God wants us to be all we can be for His glory.  Hebrews 12:1 is one of my very favorite verses.  It says, “…let us lay aside every weight and the sin which does so easily beset us…”

In another translation it says, “those sins that wrap themselves so tightly around our feet and trip us up…” You see, God doesn’t want anything to trip us up!  Unforgiveness can do that!  And so He calls us to live a life of forgiveness.

There are three really important parts to forgiveness.  First of all, it’s our willingness to forgive.  We have to decide to make the choice to forgive.

Next, we ask for His help.  We probably can’t do it on our own, so we say, “Lord Jesus, empower me with the ability to forgive! Do it through me!”

And last but not least, I wish it was a “one-time thing,” but I think it’s something we have to do over and over!  But let’s do it!  So we can be off and running – free from anything that would entangle us or trip us up!  Let’s run the race!