Reflections on Forgiveness

If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?  But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared. - Psalm 130

 If you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. - Matthew 6

I have been around religious circles quite a long time and I have never heard the word resent used by a victorious man.  .  .  .   In the course of scores of conferences and hundreds of conversations I have many times heard people say, “I resent that.”  But I repeat: I have never heard the words used by a victorious man.  Resentment simply cannot dwell in a loving heart.  Before resentfulness can enter, love must take its flight and bitterness take over.  The bitter soul will compile a list of slights at which it takes offense and will watch over itself like a mother bear over her cubs. 

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Few sights are more depressing than that of a professed Christian defending his supposed rights and bitterly resisting any attempt to violate them. - A.  W. Tozer, Of God and Men

 Forgiveness begets gratitude, gratitude creates love, and love brings forth holiness.   - Charles Spurgeon

 Let it be known to you therefore, brothers, that through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and by him everyone who believe is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses.  - Paul the Apostle, Acts 13