Matthew 6:15 But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
aphiémi. Is the word forgive which also translates to “send away”
Everybody has their own way of interpreting scripture. But lately I’m beginning to understand this is more about the heart than anything. I used to read this in a way that basically said if I don’t forgive you then God won’t forgive me, but then God says he will never leave me or forsake me. I think it’s more when I’m walking with unforgiveness or carrying an offense, I have chosen to be separated from God, I have literally made myself incapable of experiencing God’s forgiveness because of what this is doing in my heart.
Picture this……. the person that hurt you literally stabs you in the heart with a knife and left it there and walked away. You are bleeding out. You have a choice, you can either pull the knife out yourself and be healed in Jesus name or you can leave the knife in there and wait for the person who stabbed you to come and pull it out.
When other people have wronged us it is our responsibility to forgive them, That is who we are when we are followers of Jesus. We really don’t have a choice in the matter.
Galatians 5:14
For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Walking in unforgiveness or being offended or carrying that offense all run in the same pack. The word offense is broken down like this.
4625 skándalon – properly, the trigger of a trap (the mechanism closing a trap down on the unsuspecting victim); (figuratively) an offense, putting a negative cause-and-effect relationship into motion.
4625 /skándalon (“the means of stumbling”) stresses the method (means) of entrapment, i.e. how someone is caught by their own devices (like their personal bias, carnal thinking).
Basically you have a choice you can either hold on to the offense or send it away (forgive)
Send it away and live free or hold on to it and let it eat you from the inside out.
Anything we hold on to that is not rooted in love is killing us! Dr Jim Richards.
Many people claim they cannot forgive. The truth is they can. The desire to not forgive is rooted in vengeance. But there’s another emotional component more deadly. Since we reap what we sow, we can only take hold of the grace to receive that which we are willing to give. Therefore, we are incapable of experiencing God’s forgiveness when we have not forgiven others. Dr Jim Richards.
Matthew 6.6 