Pastor Barry's "Chapter & Verse" Day 56

February 25;      Matthew 6:14;       6/260(IV);        ‘Forgive & Forgiven’

Matthew 6:14 "For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.

We were created by the Lord Jesus Christ.  Since He made us, He surely knows what is best for us and what is not best.  When we believe the Gospel message and become born again, the Bible teaches that we become the righteousness of God in Christ and that our sins are forgiven, forgotten and cleansed.  Ephesians 4:32 instructs us to forgive others just as the Father, through Jesus forgave us.  Do people hurt us?  They absolutely do.  Does the Lord want us to forgiven them?  He absolutely does.  As I say so many times, Jesus Christ came not only to die on the cross to redeem us from sin and sickness, but He came to be an example of how to live.  No one could have been more shamefully treated by the religious leaders than Jesus was.  Yet before He was arrested in Jerusalem, He wept over these men.  On the cross, one of the things Jesus said, was, “Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.”  Unforgiveness hurts you more than it hurts the one who hurt you.  Jesus kept His eyes on His Father, because He knew that people would often do things that are painful to others.  When we refuse to forgive, we greatly hinder the Lord’s ability to bless us since unforgiveness is disobedience.  In the natural unforgiveness can have very harmful effects on our physical body and the Lord would spare us of this.  When we become born again, the Lord deposits His love into our spirit.  That love enables us to forgive.  In addition, when I think of how Jesus forgave me, how can I ever refuse to forgive another?