SINCERELY FORGIVE
BREAD
12 “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” Matthew 6:12 (NIV)
14 “For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.” Matthew 6:14-15 (NIV)
21 Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?” 22 Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times. 23 Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24 As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. 25 Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. 26 The servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ 27 The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go. 28 But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded. 29 His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.’ 30 But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. 31 When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened. 32 Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. 33 Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ 34 In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed. 35 This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.” Matthew 18:21-35 (NIV)
25 “And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.” Mark 11:25 (NIV)
3 “So watch yourselves. If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. 4 If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, ‘I repent,’ forgive him.” 5 The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” 6 He replied, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you.” Luke 17:3-6 (NIV)
12 Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13 Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Colossians 3:12-14 (NIV)
32 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. Ephesians 4:32 (NIV)
40 A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.” 41 Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” 42 Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cured. Mark 1:40-42 (NIV)
BUTTER
“They who are Christ’s are kings. Take care that you wear your crown, by reigning over your lusts. Be a king in the midst of all that would lead you astray. Christ Jesus has broken the neck of your sin; put your foot upon it; keep it under; subdue it. In the world at large act a king’s part. If any would tempt you to betray Christ for gain, say, ‘How can I? I am a king. How shall I betray Christ?’ Let the nobility of your nature come out in your actings. Forgive in a royal manner, as a king can forgive. Be ready to give to others as God has helped you, as a king gives. Let your liberality of spirit be right royal. Let your actions never be mean, sneaking, cowardly, dastardly. Do the right thing, and defy the worst. Dare all your foes in the pursuit of that which is right, and let men see while they look upon you that there is a something under your homely appearance which they cannot understand. Men make a deal of fuss about the blood of the aristocracy; I dare say it is not very different from the blood of crossing-sweepers. But there is a great deal of difference between the lifeblood of the saints and the lifeblood of the proudest prince; for they who love Christ have fed upon his flesh, and have drunk of his blood, and have been made partakers of the divine nature. These are the royal ones; these are the aristocrats; these are the nobility, and all are mean beside. Christians, perhaps some of you have not reigned as kings during the last week. You have been either murmuring, like poor whining beggars, or you have been scraping, like dunghill rakers, with your covetousness, or you have been sinning, like idle boys in the street, who roll in the mire. You have not lived up to your kingship.” Charles H. Spurgeon
“When you cling tightly to bitterness, anger, resentment, and unforgiveness, elevating them above your relationship with God, they become ‘idols’ in your life. For each idol you are willing to destroy, you will gain more than you lose. Each time you surrender something to God, you will remove another hindrance to a productive life of faith and prayer. Every idol that is demolished will bring you new treasures of grace and peace.” Michael Youssef
“Who among us does not need grace? Who among us does not long for merciful loving-kindness? Who among us does not need forgiveness? Every morning get up and teach yourself the Gospel – we all are sinners in need of a Savior – and be ever so thankful that we have One.” BHY
“Make me into a rock which swallows up the waves of wrong in its great caverns and never throws them back to swell the commotion of the angry sea from whence they came. Ah! To annihilate wrong in this way – to say, ‘It shall not be wrong against me, so utterly do I forgive it!’” George MacDonald
“From God’s perspective, one hidden act of repentance, one little gesture of selfless love, one moment of true forgiveness is all that is needed to bring God from His throne to run to His returning son and to fill the heavens with sounds of divine joy.” Henri J. M. Nouwen
“Forgiveness saves us the expense of anger, the cost of hatred, the waste of spirits.” Hannah More
“Forgiveness is in no way agreeing on the rightness of the sin nor is it abdicating its far reaching consequences rather it is simply seeking to love the repentant sinner rightly as well as freeing ourselves from the bitterness that inevitably comes from the lack of forgiveness. It is God’s way.” BHY
“Christianity simply does not make sense until you face the sort of facts I have been describing. Christianity tells people to repent and promises them forgiveness. It therefore has nothing (as far as I know) to say to people who do not know that they have anything to repent of and who do not feel that they need any forgiveness. It is after you have realized that there is a real moral law and a power behind the law and that you have broken that law and put yourself wrong with that power – It is after all this, and not a moment sooner, that Christianity begins to talk…(Christianity) tells you how the demands of this law, which you and I cannot meet, have been met on our behalf. How God himself becomes a man to save man from the disapproval of God. It is an old story…All I am doing is to ask people to face the facts – to understand the questions which Christianity claims to answer. And they are very terrifying facts. I wish it was possible to say something more agreeable. But I must say what I think true. Of course, I quite agree that the Christian religion is, in the long run a thing of unspeakable comfort. But it does not begin in comfort; it begins in the dismay I am describing and it is no use at all to go on to that comfort without first going through that dismay. In religion, as in war and everything else comfort is the one thing you cannot get by looking for it. If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end: If you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth. – only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin with and, in the end despair.” CS Lewis, Mere Christianity
“The glory of Christianity is to conquer by forgiveness.” William Blake
“You never touch the ocean of God’s love as when you forgive and love your enemies.” Corrie ten Boom
“God’s forgiveness forgets.” Oswald Chambers
“The man who is truly forgiven and knows it is a man who forgives.” Martyn Lloyd-Jones
HEART SAVOR
• Forgiveness is for the forgiver. If I refuse to forgive and harbor bitterness it will eat me up like acid.
• Forgiveness demonstrates God’s love.
• Forgiveness forgives and does not continue to seethe.
Beth Yoe's Sharing Bread 