Forgiveness Revisited

Reading through the Lord's Prayer the last couple of days has provided me a new insight on forgiveness I thought I would share. Jesus tells us to ask for forgiveness equal to the forgiveness we receive from Him. He says it very clearly, if we don't forgive others we will not be forgiven (Mt 6:13-14). So how does Jesus forgive us?

There are three key things we must do in order to forgive others - understand, love, and forget.

• We must understand their position, situation, or reasoning for sinning against us. As Steven Covey puts it, we must seek first to understand then to be understood. Jesus took our position in life, as a carpenter, to fully understand what it means to be human. That's the ulitmate form of understanding!
• Understanding others opens us up to love them. This isn't the love of our spouse or family but rather the agape love, or unconquerable love, that God has for us.
• Once we realize that we can love others no matter what they do (after all we are commanded to love our enemies) than we can truly forget what they have done. As it's said, God buries our sins at the bottom of the ocean. He forgets them. So must we.

We really have to progress across all three in order to truly forgive others. Living only one of these will NOT allow us to forgive. If we expect God to forgive us, so must we forgive others.

So when I ask God for forgiveness, I must remember ... have I forgiven others? Before I ask for forgiveness, I need to stop and forgive others just as I am asking for forgiveness.