That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death. Philippians 3:10
Not forgiving someone and harboring bitterness in your heart towards them is like you drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. Forgiveness is hard and especially when you have been painfully sinned against. I heard a power sermon last week on forgiveness and I would like to share some of those truths with you. If you are struggling with forgiving someone I hope what I am about to share will help and that you will allow God to get you to the place of grace. We need Gods grace in order to forgive. There are three main reasons why forgiveness is so difficult:
1. forgiveness is SUFFERING
2. forgiveness is DEATH
3. forgiveness is CRUCIFIXION
When I first heard this I wasn't sure what that meant. You see, everyone who forgives goes through a death and experiences blood, sweat and tears. Forgiveness hurts and will feel worse at first because it is death and crucifixion. It is an act of absorbing the retaliation onto myself instead of lashing out. We don't want to experience that first step because it is painful and costly but that death is the precursor to life. Sometimes God will allow those He loves to be painfully sinned against. Christ suffered and was sinned against so we are not alone in our suffering. Christ absorbed our debt, He took our sins upon Himself and experienced crucifixion and death on the cross. This was a debt we could not pay, but He paid it for us. The debt didn't disappear it was absorbed. We have been purchased by the blood of Christ, and now we are owned by God and we are to serve Him. We are called according to His purpose and not our own . We no longer belong to our self. We have committed greater sins against God than any person has ever committed against us. God is calling us to forgive. He is calling us to die but it won't be the end but the beginning.
