Can YOU Forgive, EVEN IF You CAN'T Forget?

[WISDOM]

Tough question, huh?

This is one area JESUS has to always help me with.  I know it is by HIS grace whenever I do it!  But honestly...this ISN'T my strong point!  What about YOU?  Please maintain honesty and courtesy in your response.  

[Guest GloryaRose]

:inlove: None of us has the capacity for any good or godly thing without the grace of the Lord at work in us...

 when we forgive someone who hurt us it is by the grace of God that we are able to do so.

 one thing that helps me to be quicker to seek God's help to forgive others is the knowledge that i have been forgiven...of much...and that this forgiveness was paid for by the Lamb of God before i ever knew Him...while i was still a sinner....while i was still an enemy of God... he provided for my forgiveness.

 if i stay humble...and remember that without him i am nothing but a lost sinner ...i appreciate his grace more...know that i need it more...and am quicker to extend forgiveness to others.

  when i have trouble forgiving someone i ask the Holy Spirit to help me to do so. i tell the Lord that i want to be like him, that i want to obey His word...and that i need His help to forgive this person...i have never been disappointed....God's grace always shows up!  

  real forgiveness involves an element of forgetting the persons offense and choosing to no longer see them as the one who hurt you...but as the one you have forgiven. this doesnt mean that we lose our senses and sign up for more abuse...so in some sense we cannot forget some things...in order to protect ourselves. We may have to choose to forgive...and not be free to forget some things until we are no longer at risk of being hurt by some people...and once we are no longer in danger...we may need to ask God to heal us of those hurts and help us to forgive so that we are not attached to those offenses by anger and bitterness our whole lives.

[Guest Sword N Spirit]

To maintain a close relationship with God, We must make it a habit TO FORGIVE AND FORGET.

God cannot forgive us, if we do not forgive those that do us wrong or offend us.

It comes down to a matter of CHOICE!

We must CHOOSE to FORGIVE!

We must CHOOSE to FORGET!

Always remember too, the one that actually did you wrong or offended you is not flesh and blood (the person) but is the principalties and powers of darkness (demonic forces) at work!

[WISDOM]

Truth of the matter though SNS....it's easier said than done.  It is a Christian/noble statement, but check yourself and see if you feel that way throughout each and every situation, honestly! :???:

Although I must admit...I cannot speak for everyone.

[CWJ]

Yeah....it's that forgetting part that's hard...but I confess that also.....in prayer.

:inlove:  Carl

[WISDOM]

Carl...are you following me on all these threads??   Only joking!!

It is tough isn't it bro?  Confess it?  About 30 times a day!!  Just kidding....actually the HOLY SPIRIT convicts me so much I do it right away.  Sometimes though the "cut" can be so deep that it leaves an "ugly scar", which makes it hard to forget!  But I'm hopefully in DAD's eye getting better.  HE knows my heart.

[Melanie]

I was thinking about this question, and I think that it's a lot like the story about the little boy who said a lot of hurtful things to people, and as a lesson, his parents told him to take a board and pound nails into it, and then remove the nails.

[WISDOM]

Hey Mel..... :thumb:

Love the analogy and will use henceforth!  Great illustration of forgiveness and forgeting.  In my walk I've learned that forgiveness in all honesty is surrendering my right to hurt you for hurting me.  GOD has really done a miracle with my life  because I use to be VERY vindictive.

I was often proned toward unforgiveness, but a lot has changed in my life.  Like TD Jakes says, "I am STILL under construction".  What bothers me more than anything else is when I witness unholiness and hatred in my own bros/sis in CHRIST around me.  We then are no different than those still under the Enemy's snare.  The one thing that savess my mouth many times is whenever the HOLY SPIRIT brings back to my remembrance that I too am in constant daily need of forgiveness, so in the process I try awful hard to sow seeds of forgiveness against all odds.  It isn't always an easy task, and this is what I was trying to point out in my post to SNS.  It is easier said than done.

[Melanie]

Here's the story I was referring to...

"The Little Boy"

[Guest Sword N Spirit]

Truth of the matter though SNS....it's easier said than done.