Luke 17:3-4
“Take heed to yourselves. If your brother sins against you, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times in a day returns to you, saying, ‘I repent,’ you shall forgive him.”
If you are like me, there are times when a song pops into your head and it seems that you go over and over it. In the past day or so I have had that experience. The song is one that Bing Crosby sang many years ago — Easy to Remember, But So Hard to Forget referred to a sweetheart that was gone but not forgotten.
As I have thought about the words, I have been reminded how difficult it is for some people to forgive. The easy part is remembering the offense against us — forgetting the offense is the hard part.
Across the years I have been called upon to counsel many people dealing with the issue of forgiveness. They may say they have forgiven the offender, but at the same time their actions reveal that their thought life continually dwells on the way they were treated by the other party.
I have come to realize that the only reasonable way of dealing with our inability to forget the offenses of others is to focus on our own. Imagine a situation where another person is guilty of 85 percent and we are guilty of 15 percent. We must remember our own transgressions and ask the Lord to show us how to forget our hurt.
May God richly bless you as you by your words and actions!
– – Pastor Cecil