Living Forgiving

This morning I woke up with the hope of getting the details of my little boy's birthday party at the park in place and on the way to being ready. The goal being to have the day with friends and grandparents be as fun as ever and as stress-free as possible.

While wrapping presents and filling a piñata, I happened upon the below video on Living Forgiving – learning how to forgive the little constant offenses that come up throughout the day so that we are "practiced-up" for the times we will be devastated.

It made me think about how the lack of forgiveness in our hearts, even regarding the smallest of offenses, is often-times the catalyst for ineffectiveness in our life and relationships, and especially an ineffectiveness in our prayer life.

In Lee Thomas' book, "Praying Effectively for the Lost", it says:
"There are two factors or conditions involved in every answered prayer – righteousness and faith. The imputed righteousness of Christ, which comes through His shed blood, is what gives us boldness to approach His throne of grace. It is absolutely indispensable for effective prayer. But personal righteousness is also crucial, for Psalm 66:18 says, “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.” Perhaps Jesus summed it up best when He said, “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you” (John 15:7). In other words, obedient Christians get their prayers answered!!
The other necessary factor in all answered prayer is faith. This is an unbreakable law in the spiritual realm. It is always “according to your faith be it unto you” (Matthew 9:29). Unbelief is continually our besetting sin and it is more often than not the cause of unanswered prayer.
So when we pray. . .we need righteousness (imputed and personal) and faith."

God is insistent about forgiveness as you will hear in the video below. He teaches the principle best in part of a simple prayer, "Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors" (Matthew 6:12).

I believe it is imperative that we learn to forgive, even the smallest of infractions. We must get in the habit of forgiving so we can be effective in our relationship with Christ and our relationships with others.



In the video above Beth Moore takes us through the end of Ephesians 4 to the first two verses of Chapter 5 and then into Matthew 18:21-22 – on the subject of forgiveness. When talking about Peter asking Jesus how many times must you forgive an offender, she says that in Jesus' reply it is like He is saying, "You do NOT want to keep count on this. . .if you start keeping count – it won't be a lasting relationship."

I heard last night on the radio a pastor preaching on the subject of forgiveness and I can't seem to get this one out of my head. He said (and I am recalling from memory), "If you choose not to forgive someone, you are over-exaggerating their offense, while at the same time you are then minimizing the offenses of which you yourself have been forgiven on the cross. . ."

Wow! I'm sure, Jesus knowing of His death and resurrection and the cost of which we will never be able to comprehend, He was in a way warning Peter with a "You have no idea what you are implying. You will soon understand what forgiveness truly is, and you won't want to be in the habit of 'keeping track' in light of how much you yourself are forgiven."

Thankfully, God equips and enables us to be able to forgive the small and large offenses in our lives with His example of His ultimate act of forgiveness, yes? And the more we take our hurts quickly and directly to Him – the very minute any lack of forgiveness tries to worm its way into our hearts – we have victory! Then we can really get on to the business of praying for the people God has placed in our lives!