Freedom in Forgiveness: Discover the Healing in Letting Go by Sara BrunsvoldSample

Day 2

Forgiveness puts our view of self into clearer perspective.

One of the people who speaks into Nikki’s life in The Divine Proverb of Streusel is her great-aunt Emma, whose messages resound with godly wisdom. Nikki asks Aunt Emma to tell her about the hardest thing she ever had to forgive. This is Aunt Emma’s reply:

It’s not what I forgive, it’s why I choose to do it that matters most. The why is Jesus. I myself am a maligner, an abuser, an insulter, a neglecter, a shunner. Yet I am pure, covered in the love of a scourged and rejected Savior. I love because I am loved. I forgive because I am forgiven. I am a saint because he became my sin. I cannot charge a penny debt to someone else when I have had millions erased. When we see ourselves through a lens of a holy and perfect God, we can see more clearly why God calls us to cancel our charges against another person—our enormous debt has been paid in full! This doesn’t mean the other person bears no responsibility for the wrong they have done, but it does mean we are released from the duty of serving as their judge. God is the righteous judge, the one who showed us mercy even when we were still sinners.

But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8 ESV)

Such undeserved, unearned kindness toward us is our invitation to show the same to others.

No joy could be brighter than that of forgiveness received—and given.

Prayer

Lord God, your love for a sinner like me prompted you to send your Son to fill in my every lack. Please turn my mind to the many ways you lavish me with love and forgiveness. Please grow my heart ever more to see others as you see them and to see myself awash in your grace. I am yours, called by name, adopted into your house. Help me bear your name well in all my interactions today. May any offense, new or remembered, slide quickly from my mind and heart. Thank you for the power of the cross that renews my mind, sustains my life, and establishes victory over all things. Amen.