Forgiveness Myth #1: We need to try hard to forgive
Truth: We don’t have the ability to forgive—apart from Christ
For years, I believed forgiving others was something we needed to try real hard to do. I finally figured out that there is no trying hard enough. Forgiving others is impossible—on our own.
If, somehow, you owed me $1,000,000 and you couldn’t pay—it would wipe me out to cancel the debt. In the same way, the evil done to us is so great that the perpetrators cannot afford to make restitution and we cannot afford to forgive. Yet we must forgive. What do we do?
We bring those debts to Jesus. Only Jesus can restore what was stolen from us. When we let go, He mends and heals what was broken and restores what was taken. Only He can take the hate from us and replace it with love.
Christianity is impossible. That’s why we have a Savior.
More next time.
These thoughts are adapted from Chapter 5 of Dwight’s book, Spiritual Self Defense. More info here:
http://ssdcourage.com/spiritual-self-defense/
Bible trivia:
Answer from last time: Jeremiah has almost as many words as Psalms in most English Bibles. (However, in the original language, Jeremiah and Genesis each contain more words than Psalms.)
New question: What is the longest book in the New Testament?
