Forgive Others

"If you forgive others their wrongs, your Father in Heaven will also forgive yours. If you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive you either." - Matthew 6:14-15

A good thing to do throughout the day and especially before you go to sleep is to examine your conscience. I like to think about everything I did, everyone I spoke to and think if I offended anyone. A sin is any action that lacks love, so if I said anything mean about someone, if I judged someone, or even if I chose not to help someone when I could have, it's all sin. Thinking about all the bad I do during the day really weighs heavily on my heart. It hurts to think of the times I offend God. I especially feel horrible when I find myself judging someone right off the bad. It's scary and sad to think that's the initial reaction that comes from my heart. But as evil as I am, I really know that God is loving and forgiving. And this is why we all need to really pray for help in forgiving others. I, like many of you, carry around wounds for things people have done to me, things that get me upset just to think about! Some people have hurt us so bad that there's no way we could ever think of even seeing them again, but who are we to hold things against others when we do worse to God and He is always, always forgiving? Forgiveness doesn't mean you have to condone what that person did to you. It only means that you have decided not to hold the grudge and live free of the weight on your shoulders. When you do this, God forgives you for all of your offenses. Then you would be free to have a more open relationship with God and get to know Him better, instead of carrying around pain for the grudges you are harboring. We all want to be better people and this is one of the most important steps in achieving that. We can't be in peace with God unless we're in peace with those around us.

Today's Prayer:
Lord Jesus, I think of people who have hurt me and I get angry, but then I am humbled when I think of how You have forgiven me time after time. You call me to be perfect, like our Father is perfect… although that is so hard for me to attain, help me to get one step closer each day. In Your Name we pray, amen.

Releasing The Grudge

"As they were stoning him, Stephen prayed saying: 'Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.' Then he knelt down and said in a loud voice: 'Lord, do not hold this sin against them.' And when he had said this, he died." - Acts 7:59-60

In my bible, right next to this verse, I have written down, "how can we have such love?" And while many of you might not agree with this, but I admire Stephen, Christianity's first martyr, for having had the love and faith to ask for his murderers' forgiveness as he was dying. I wish I were like him. I wish I had his faith and his love because this is someone who is truly free. I believe that when someone hurts us, we hold on to that pain and that resentment, recalling it in our minds with hurt and anger, but it eats away at us while the other person is fine. Holding a grudge against another person is a burden we set ourselves up to carry. Letting it go is much easier said than done, but at the end of the day, is the toll it takes on us worth holding on to? Stephen knew it wasn't worth it. He was about to lose his life and understood that it is better to lose it, then hold on to any hate, especially when he was dying to show an example of faith in Christ. And most of the time, the people that hurt us, don't even know they're doing it, or understand why they're doing it. In Stephen's case, many of those who cast the stones just didn't understand his faith and feared a change in their culture and society. No one teaches anyone a lesson by staying angry, showing hate, or holding a grudge. We only hurt ourselves because we allow ourselves to get angry all over again and never heal. We encage ourselves and take away our own freedom.

Today's Prayer:
Jesus, show us how to be truly free. It is inevitable that we get hurt by people but holding on to those grudges causes us more harm than the initial wound. I know You want us to live in love, but open our minds and hearts to follow Your example, then teach us to be an example for others. In Your Name we pray, amen.