GUEST MEDITATION

By Rev. Wendell Lamb, Guest Correspondent
Published: August 7, 2008

When Jesus was asked by one of His disciples to teach them to pray, He taught them to have a forgiving spirit even as the Father has a forgiving spirit. Jesus said that when you pray, pray, “Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone that is indebted to us,“ Luke 11:4. Now note that Jesus said, “everyone.“ Yes, when we have a forgiving spirit towards everyone who has wronged us, we are in like manner being as our Father which art in heaven.
Paul, in writing to the saints that were at Ephesus, admonished them to “Be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ sake hath forgiven you,“ Ephesians 4:32. To forgive is to be kind and not to forgive is to be unkind. To forgive is to be tenderhearted and not to forgive is to be hardhearted. To forgive even as God for Christ sake hath forgiven you is to have an appreciation in your heart of God’s love in forgiving you. Not to forgive is not to show God’s love to others.
Now if we are unkind, hardhearted, and unloving to others in that we will not forgive them, we are disobedient to God’s word and God deals with disobedience.