DAY 12: Forgiveness Breaks The Cycle

By Kelly Monroe Kullberg (The Veritas Forum)

“Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, ‘Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?’ Jesus answered, ‘I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.’”
— Matthew 18:21-22 (NIV)

Forgiveness breaks the cycle of hurt, offense, and vengeance that often characterizes the world’s system. When we confess our own sins before our holy God and remember the blood of Christ shed for us, we are free to extend His mercy to those who’ve hurt us. That makes us channels of healing to the world around us. Forgiveness opens up our future and gives us a fresh testimony of hope.

We do not forgive by our own strength alone but only by the power of Jesus, who on that cross declared, “Father, forgive them, they don’t know what they do” (Luke 23:34). When we look to Him, when we draw from the strength of Christ’s forgiveness on the cross (first towards us while we were yet sinners), then His supernatural grace begins to flow through us to be able to forgive all who have sinned against us.

As 1 John 4:19 says, “We love because he first loved us.” In the same way, we can only forgive because He has first forgiven us! That forgiveness is an endless ocean of grace, strength, and mercy to forgive even the greatest of sins and even the greatest of sinners — beginning first with us and continuing to all who have sinned against us! Once we understand the depths from which we have been forgiven, there will be no forgiveness too great to extend to another.

PRAYER POINTS:

• Pray that no root of bitterness would hinder the Lord’s work in our own hearts or the campus ministries but that we would freely forgive and see one another as God sees.