Forgiveness

We All Have a Story

Have you ever heard the scream of a mother as she opened her front door to discover two army officers standing on her doorstep? I have.

It cut to my heart like nothing before or since. Knowing it was my favorite brother who was killed only caused the pain to cut more deeply.

How could I forgive those who urged my brother to enter the army when the Vietnam War was raging? How could I forgive the Vietcong? For that matter, how could I forgive God?

But it wasn't until I did that God's presence was restored. And ...

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Moving from Bitterness to Forgiveness

Corrie ten Boom, author of The Hiding Place, was taken captive and spent time in Nazi concentration camps during World War II. She tells stories of the filth and horrendous conditions, of how she and her fellow captives were herded like cattle, strip-searched, and abused.

The prisoners would intentionally let lice breed on their bodies, because the more lice they had, the less the guards would molest them. And in one of those brutal prison camps, Corrie's frail sister died. After the war, God sent Corrie ten Boom on a mission of mercy. As she traveled through the war-torn ...

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Will You Choose to Forgive?

Do you expect to get hurt in life? I do. I certainly don't ask for it, but I know that pain is unavoidable in this fallen world. The same is true for you. Everyone gets wronged and offended by others. There's no way around it. That much is obvious. But I want to challenge you to consider another observation that may not be quite so easy to accept: The outcome of our lives is not determined by what happens to us but by how we respond to what happens to us. Of course, we will be affected by ...

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ViewPoint: An Urgent Choice

Revive sits down with Gregg Simmons, pastor of Church at the Cross in Grapevine, Texas, to discuss the consequences of bitterness and the real heart of forgiveness.
R: Gregg, you've pastored for a number of years. How often does the topic of forgiveness come up? GS: To tell you the truth, the majority of pastoral counseling that I do, whether regarding individual or marital struggles, relates back to this issue. Bitterness, or the lack of forgiveness,
may be the greatest sin of the 21st-century American church.

R: What does bitterness look like? GS: It manifests itself in different ways ...

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God will not forgive my sins unless. . .?

"What? I thought forgiveness was a gift! God may not forgive me after all? God's Word doesn't teach that!" But it's there, in the Bible, a statement by Jesus Himself: "For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your father will not forgive your sins." (Matthew 6:14-15 NIV) We know that forgiveness is at the heart of God's gracious love. It's the practical outworking of God's plan to redeem and restore mankind. We catch a ...

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Perfect Pardon

First, we ask at Your hands, great Father, complete forgiveness for all our sins and shortcomings. We hope we can say with truthfulness that we do from our heart forgive all those who have in any way trespassed against us. There lies not in our heart, we hope, a thought of enmity towards any man. However we have been slandered or wronged, we would, with our inmost heart, forgive and forget it all.

We come to You and pray that, for Jesus' sake and through the virtue of the blood once shed for many for the remission of sins, You ...

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Real World: The Limits of Forgiveness

As a young girl, she was forced to endure secret abuse. Her dilemma: Suppress her haunting past, or extend forgiveness? A panel of counselors share their thoughts.

The Scenario

A beautiful young girl leaves her cheerful "mask" at school, heading home to a war zone of dysfunctional relationships. Her family is a curse to be endured. She knows that the abuse she is experiencing, the perversion her father forces her to endure, cannot be right.

For years the secret abuse continues. Then she learns that her mom, the one person she always believed she could trust, knew of the abuse ...

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Beyond Forgiveness

Let's say I do it. I choose. "I . . . um . . . I . . . forgive . . . you." There. I said it. Have I now forgiven as Christ forgave me?

I've started, which is probably the hardest part. I've ignored my emotions that still scream for vengeance. I've committed to walk God's path. I've uttered the three words that so many promise themselves they could never—will never—utter.

But the place I go next is where the light of Jesus can shine through me, where I enter the realm of divine, undeserved, almost unimaginable forgiveness.

"Lord, do not hold ...

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