Title: Try it today - Forgive!

‭Colossians‬ ‭3:13‬ ‭KJV‬

[13] forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. 

https://bible.com/bible/1/col.3.13.KJV

Devotion: This difficult teaching is the height of Christian maturity because it takes a lot of guts to forgive someone who wronged us. This is most difficult when the person deliberately wrongs you, use you as trash or causes you a life changing (loss of job, accident etc) experience.

 To forgive such an one you'll need to put yourself in the person's condition to understand the person's actions. This is why Jesus Christ came to live among humans to have first hand experience as humans. So it was easy for him to forgive our sins on the Cross. It is called empathy.

 Let's us remember that we are all sinners by the nature of our birth - human beings, we all did wrong to God, but he forgave us the moment we accept Christ as Lord and Saviour. With this in mind it should not be difficult to forgive someone. We may find it difficult to forget what the person did but we have to forgive just as God forgave us.

 Therefore, to forgive that person who wronged you put yourself in his position and empathize with him. I know it is difficult to do but that is what Jesus did when he lived amongst humans to experience what humans experiences. Scripture isn’t asking us to do something that Jesus hasn’t already done for us. And, Scripture also says that to the extent we forgive, we will be forgiven (Matthew 6:14-15). So if we truly want to experience God’s forgiveness, then we need to extend forgiveness to others—even when we can’t forget what they’ve done. 

 Try to put it into practice today and begin to experience happiness in your heart. Kindly share your thoughts with us here. Hallelujah.

©Dr Joel Olanrewaju. You can reach me on gbemide09@gmail.com for questions, suggestions, counseling and prayer requests. Check my web page ojaysjoel.blogspot.com for more devotionals.