Read: Judges 7:1-8:17, Luke 23:13-43, Psalm 97:1-98:9, Proverbs 14:7-8
Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.” (Luke 23:34)
Relate: What is the price of forgiveness? What is the price of the inability to forgive? Some sad stuff has happened in my life but not much bad stuff has happened. I’ve experienced death and loss but I’ve never been in an abusive or cheating relationship. I had great parents and did not experience anything significant in the way of neglect, verbal, or physical abuse growing up. I haven’t experienced true bullying, never been mugged or raped, never been loaded into a train with a destination like Auschwitz, and never been bought and sold by a slave trader. It is hard for me to understand how hard it might be for another to forgive.
When I meet with someone who has faced injustice or abuse in ways like that I can only imagine what they have gone through. I can talk about the need to forgive. I can say that Jesus commanded us to forgive and that He said the price of not forgiving someone else is hell, but those are only words. The best I can do is to pray and to point them to heroes of the faith like Corrie Ten Boom who had to learn to forgive the Nazi oppressors in her own life.
React: That and I can point them to Jesus. Twice Pilate said he was going to set Jesus free and then he betrayed him to the injustice of the mob. He was beaten, mocked, run through a kangaroo court, and a crown of thorns was shoved on his brow. Facing sleep deprivation, and serious amounts of blood loss, he was forced to carry a heavy crossbeam naked and exposed through a crowd and up a hill. He was then raised up on that cross at a place where everyone passing by would wee his suffering and his shame. Right in front of him the soldiers gambled his inheritance away as he was dying. The crowds, and even one of the men dying next to him took their turns mocking him as he hung there naked, in pain, and fighting suffocation with a strength that was quickly bleeding away.
If anyone had a right to anger, if anyone ever had a right to rail at the injustice done to them, he did. Instead Jesus cries out, “Father forgive them, they don’t realize what they are doing.” Jesus paid a huge price for my forgiveness. Not only that, in paying that price, He set an example. No matter what happens in my life, no matter what is done to me, I can forgive.
Respond:
God, help me to forgive. I can look at the big things that might come and prepare myself for the need to forgive hypotheticals, but day by day there are petty wrongs committed against me as well as petty wrongs I commit against others. Forgive me for what I do and help me to forgive the things done to me. Please protect me from the serious, life wrecking wrongs that could be done unless You would rather use injustice in my life as a way to show Your grace and forgiveness to a watching world. Above all else, be glorified in my life.
THE RIVER WALK 
Amen! God bless you 🙂
Reblogged this on afriendofJESUS2013Blog and commented:
Thank God, we can forgive people and forgive ourselves.
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When we don’t forgive, the only one who truly suffers is we, ourselves. Bitterness is a root that runs deep the longer it has to grow. I know. I waited and even nurtured it.
As children of God, we are to forgive everyone just as Christ forgive all our sins
my prayer for you is this: i pray that you never have to forgive someone who has purposefully harmed your child because that is on a whole different level than forgiving something that is done to yourself.
Reblogged this on Sophia's Voice.
I always look forward to your posts and stop to read them no matter how busy I am. Thank you for all the work you put into your blog – it is a blessing! 🙂
Thank you.
Such a great word! Thank you for posting!
Amen and amen….may we all have that attitude in the name of Jesus!
Thank you for this post. I needed that.
I definitely needed to hear this today…and I love this particular song.
Amen, great post. Mark 6:12
Great message. I love your system of read, relate, react, respond. Thanks.
-Jen
Bewholeblog.wordpress.com
Oh my goodness, I have been working on this forgiveness thing for years…but it was freely given to me, who am I not to freely give it to others? Thanks for your post!
If I could only follow up this message with a thought that been on my mind for a very long time.
Forgiving others is hard. Forgiving yourself is even harder.
BJ. Kool blog dude, Its so ironic because I started preparing my next blog for next week last friday and its also on forgiveness…so upon reading this post it has me pumped up because I can’t wait till others read my post regarding my outlook on that topic. And great to have someone who has a heart for Jesus early on on my blogging journey.
Reblogged this on Girl Remained Unknown and commented:
JESUS. Forever the hope in my ♥.
I was watching an interview with the parents of one of the victims of Sandy Hook school. The reporter asked them about forgiving Adam Lanza and the mother said that she realized it wasn’t her job to judge or forgive this person. My thought was that you still have to forgive, though. It finally dawned on me that by giving this to God, she was forgiving, whether she recognized it or not. So much harder to forgive than to ask for forgiveness.
Forgiveness isn’t for the benefit of the offender; it’s for the offended.