How Can I Forgive?

Years ago I heard a sermon on forgiveness, and one statement the speaker made has been a help to me. It's a familiar quote: “To know all is to forgive all.”

If I could know all about another's situation, if I truly understood their background and the way they’ve been treated in the past, if I knew every detail that goes into their behavior, then I’ll understand why they act as they do, and I’ll forgive all.

Would it make their actions seem right? Not necessarily. But I could understand their way of thinking, and forgiveness would be much easier.

Sometimes when we voice our opinion about someone, we damage that person in another’s eyes. God helped me see that to guard my mouth, I must first guard my thoughts. I was to forgive them in my mind and consider that they might be simply reacting out of their past. Then when I had forgiven them in my mind, I felt no need to voice my criticisms. They simply weren't there.

Jesus said clearly what was not His purpose: “I did not come to judge the world, but to save it” (John 12:47).

If our goal is not to judge, but to save, our thoughts, attitudes, and words will be acceptable in His sight.

Dear Jesus, let Your humble, forgiving heart live in me.

“Stop judging others, and you will not be judged. For others will treat you as you treat them. Whatever measure you use in judging others, it will be used to measure how you are judged. And why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own?

“Hypocrite! First get rid of the log from your own eye; then perhaps you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend’s eye” (Matthew 7:1-3, 5).