Forgiveness

Shreya Varghese

Bioinfomatics Engineering, 2nd year

SRM university

I was reading Mathew 6 early this morning and was trying to talk to God about the certain issues that I am facing right now at home like boredom(the only thing I face here) and joblessness. While talking to Bittu Chechi, I realised that I can actually pen down what all I have learnt in my quiet times and what all God has spoken to me. 

Since the last three months I noticed that God was trying to bring to me this verse Mathew 6:14 which says “For if you FORGIVE other people when they sin against you ,your Heavenly Father will also FORGIVE you…”

Now how can I relate to this? Let me give you a small briefing on my past Life. Before getting saved and knowing God I was the kind of person who would hold grudges for any passing person for petty issues like may be not passing a pleasant smile. There was a lot to be filtered from me and in the past few months and believe me, God was trying to do that at His best. I never liked Forgiving people who never treated me right. I was holding so much against them that it eventually started affecting my time with God and our conversation became more about whining over how others have treated me than Thanksgiving and Praise. It started affecting the way I think and completely left me in havoc for days. 

Until one fine day when Pastor Chad spoke about forgiveness in Church, I always thought that because of the people, I am at a very bad state, but actually I realized that it was ME. The fault was within me. I was spending so much of time thinking about what happened and crying about it. I was holding lot of unforgiveness within me and that not only affected me but the other person also. I realized my focus had shifted from His Kingdom to something very destructive and towards the will of the evil one. 

As we look in the life of Jesus in Luke 2 where Jesus says in verse 5 “ Son, your sins are forgiven”, we can see how humble and merciful He is. If the whole purpose of our Life is to be like Jesus and if we are not forgiving then we are truly breaking the law for it says in James 2:10, “ For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it”. You may say that it’s very hard at times but let’s just think - what if Our Father in Heaven would had not chosen to forgive us through Christ, then we would not have been under Grace like we are now today. We would not have the eternal hope which we are seeking today. To be honest I realized that I could be more humble and useful for Christ as soon as I started to Forgive people with the help of the Holy Spirit and constant prayers.

So FORGIVE, its okay if people are mistreating us because in 2 Corinthians 4:17, it says “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all”. Let’s Forgive and get ready for the Kingdom of God which is very near. Let’s become that spotless bride for which Jesus is coming back again. And not to forget our quiet times and prayers which will help us achieve that. 

Stay Blessed..:)