Slideshow image

Keeping Your Heart Pure

 

Colossians 3:13 - Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. 

In his book “The Gift of Forgiveness,” Charles Stanley writes, “Forgiveness is something each of us has had to deal with one way or another. What might take you just a short time to work through might be a process that takes someone else time, prayer, and godly counsel. But it is a process that we cannot ignore, not if we want to be free to become the persons God created us to be.”

Stanley goes on to say that if we refuse to deal with the bitterness and resentments that put us in bondage, we cannot have the fellowship with our Heavenly Father we are supposed to have.

It is not easy to forgive another person. Some wounds are deep and last for decades. But hatred and bitterness are bars that imprison us. When we place the person in God’s hands and release the bitterness to Him, we’re set free, just as truly as if we were released from jail.

As Jesus was teaching His disciples how to pray in Matthew 6:12 – “And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” So we are to pray for forgiveness as we have forgiven others. What a blessed thought and tremendous responsibility!