The effect that unforgiveness has on our ability to walk in love:

Often when we are wronged by others we are determined to make them pay the price for what they have done to us. This leads to us developing a heart that is unforgiving and it prevents the love of Christ from flowing freely through us to others. A situation is referred to in the Word where a servant begs the King to please cancel his massive debt. The King then proceeds to forgive the servant his debt. The man then walks out and see someone who owes him a small amount of money and he is determined to make sure that this debt is repaid at all costs. The King in observing this then has the man thrown back into prison for his inability to exercise compassion and to forgive the man his debt in the same manner that he was forgiven. As Christian we often tend to forget how much Christ has forgiven us which then leads to us wanting to hold others accountable for wrongdoings that we should be forgiving them for. We should be praying for them and committing them into the hands of our loving Father. The Lord’s Prayer tells us to “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us”. This indicates the importance of forgiveness and that without forgiveness we will not be able to live a life that reflects the love of Christ.

God sent his only Son to perish on the cross by suffering a horrendous crucifixion in order that we may be forgiven of all our sins, past present and future. The real issue is that we often are not able to forgive ourselves and thereby receive the awesome gift of forgiveness that God bought for us at cavalry at a price. This inability to receive this forgiveness for ourselves has an impact on our ability to be able to extend forgiveness to others.

Erick Bouwmeester