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Every time we have a nearly impossible job it makes a huge difference if we have plenty of motivation to keep dealing with it until it is finally completed. Forgiveness is exactly like that. Our angry thoughts can cling to us just like glue. It really depresses us to keep remembering previous injuries. It requires of our time and effort to get released. We try opting out, demanding, "Why should I forgive?". Let these compelling God-given motivations come to your deliverance! 1) Your very own Freedom. Hanging on to unforgiveness makes it inevitable we shall remain a patsy of the pain of the past! We take prisoner our heart behind walls of rage and unpleasant feelings, and then declare to our enemy, "You did this to me!". In reality nobody has the power to seal your heart up but you. Nobody can stick injury in and then manage to keep it there. No one can impose injury which your powerful Lord can not redeem, making "all things" become servants of your ultimate blessing. Should we choose to embrace the way of escape our Lord makes available, then we will definitely finish the assigned task of giving over to God all the injustice and pain that other people have caused us. This is what God would like us to do for the sake of our inner healing. This is precisely what He did for each one of us. 2) Their Blindness. Have you "heard" yourself thinking, "Why did they do that? They understood clearly what they were doing!" That is not the way Jesus looks at it. When He was being nailed to a cross by His adversaries Jesus called out, "Father, forgive them. They don't know what they are doing." Certainly, if this motivation helped Jesus, then it is according to truth and it will assist us as well. As explained to us by the Bible the one who does wrong has been deceived by an invisible foe. No one that does wrong is seeing just what they are doing in the whole light of God's wider perspective or the clear awareness of how they are being exploited by their own personal enemy! 3) Your Captivity to Darkness. When we rise up in angry indignation, we eventually become spiritually blind and are unable to see the vastness of our own wrong ways. We cast stones at them saying, "I would never do a thing like that!" This makes it extremely difficult to forgive. Our Lord has a "way of liberation" from these rigid judgments. He reminds us that we are able to do absolutely nothing good without Him and it is solely by His merciful gift that we are not having to pay for our sins. Simply let the view of your wrongdoings (of thought, word and act) restore your perspective. We all are sinners in immense need of grace and forgiveness. Next take it one step further. Jesus contrasts the stern judgment in our eye to a timber and the offender's deed to a fragment. In our eyes we immediately exonerate our unmerciful ways, however in Jesus' view our unforgiveness is actually the greater error. 4) Empathy For Them. This is an unassailable reality: The individual who mistreated you or your loved one did not begin life in the world with that as their goal. That person showed up on the earth as a newborn wishing simply to be nuzzled, cherished and nourished. Something went off-target. An incursion from an invisible foe broke through their purity and began carrying that person along the dimmed, bent hallways of self preservation. They are "acting out" of their private distress . Haven't you at times? Without a doubt, they are liable for their bad reactions. Still, Jesus always considers their deep pain and has sympathy in His great heart for them, even as He works to bring them to repentance. Aren't you glad He is this way with you? 5) The Reward Jesus Desires. Let's "tell it like it is" for this last motivation. That man or woman you despise and condemn is someone for whom Jesus suffered a terrible death to atone for his or her iniquities. He yearns to have that person in the next life with Him! Our merciless judgment is the direct opposite of what Jesus accomplished in embracing the cross. It is in fact the essence of the "Accuser of the Brethren" in us, not the personality of our new life in Christ. If we have been greatly mistreated, we are placed in the most effective possible position to intercede with legitimate authority toward the freeing of that man or woman from a pitfall of the wicked one-- their adversary and ours. We team up with Jesus on the mercy seat interceding with Him! Why should you forgive? Reclaim your spiritual health, inner peace and liberty of spirit with the use of these five motivations. They come to us from eternity's point of view and that is sure to be liberating. Let them power you up to give the wrong done, the pain and the person to your God and to trust Him with it . That's what forgiveness is--that and the heavenly feeling of freedom and a restored life. Steve Evans helps people achieve true spiritual health through the popular ecourse, Matters of the Heart. Do you desire your daily life to grow into a river of inward peace? Find out even more on letting go! Each of the major teachings are completely free! Cast off now and get your gift copy of his unusual ebook, An Illustrated Guide to the Spiritual Life.
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