“And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.” Hebrews 10:17
That’s right everyone, we’re talking about forgiveness today. Forgiving someone, or yourself, can be one of the hardest things to do. Let’s start off with a question, shall we? What is forgiveness? Some of you may think that forgiveness is a simple apology. “I’m sorry for what I did.” “I forgive you.” Now, it’s those three words, I forgive you, that are usually the problem. I think we sometimes forget that forgiving someone isn’t just saying that you forgive them. It runs way deeper than that, and involves a lot of strength.
If you forgive someone, you are letting go of the thing the person is apologizing for. Now, I’m not saying to forgive and forget, but don’t hold the person to what they did after you said that you forgave them. Don’t continuously bring it up to make them feel bad, especially if you know how sorry they are or were. Here’s the thing though, the problem encompasses both sides; the “I’m sorry” and the “I forgive you.” When we apologize we need to be sincere and really mean it. If you can’t be serious about it, then it’s probably better if you don’t say anything at all.
In my opinion, the meaningfulness of the apology is decreasing rapidly. Most of the time, people don’t even mean it anymore. Don’t take apologies lightly. It takes a lot of strength to apologize and even more to forgive. May the Lord grant us the strength to truly forgive our people, just as he has forgiven us time and time again. Amen.