THE PRINCIPLE OF FORGIVENESS

The origin of the word forgive is a Latin word “perdonere” meaning to give completely without reservation. From the origin forgiveness is to give pardon freely without measure or to to stop being angry or blaming someone for something that person did.

The principle of forgiveness is a God oriented principle which he applies to each of us when we do inexcusable things to him. He pardon us and remembers no more. As Christians we should emulate God example and forgive. Can we think of how many times we’ve wrong God and other individuals it’s uncountable but does he remind us each time we wrong him, No, to be a Christian is to be able to forgive just as our Creator does to us.

A story is told of a forgiving woman who only had one son. The son had a friend and it happened that they were arguing about something which seemed pretty serious and the friend got angry and shot the woman’s only son. The son died. The friend was sent to prison but during the trial the lonely mother decided in her heart to forgive. Which she did, years later the man was released from prison and by chances he was living in the neighborhood of the deceased mother. The woman started visiting him and even inviting him for dinners. One day the man got curious and thought didn’t I kill his son then why the kindness, he decided he would ask her and the response was “I FORGAVE YOU” he was left wondering in his mind what did I do to deserve this forgiveness. The Christian woman explained later how God forgives and we ought to forgive. He decided to be a Christian through the forgiving mother. In forgiveness, people are not being asked to forget ,on the contrary, it is important to remember so that we should not let such atrocities happen again. Forgiveness does not mean condoning what has been done. It means taking what happened seriously and deciding to draw out the sting in memory that threatens our entire existence.

Procedure for forgiving

1) Acknowledge the hurt.

2) Identify your emotion.

3) Cancel the debt.

4) Set boundaries.

5) Commit to forgive.

6) Let go . Using a blank card write the names of those individuals who have hurt you in one way or the other. Then prayerfully dedicate yourself and them to God and ask God to help you forgive them. Each time you are reminded of the thing they did wrong overcome with the word.” I can do all things through Christ that strengthens me”.