EPHESIANS 4:32

Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.

TO PONDER

“I can forgive BUT I can’t forget!” is a saying I hear frequently and while I get the idea every time I hear someone say it, I feel a bit… confused?

Today’s verse tells us to forgive each other as God forgave us. Very cool but how does God forgive us? 

Well, today’s verse says He forgives us “in Christ”, through the life, death & resurrection of Jesus He forgives us, that’s grace!

Isaiah 43:25 tells us; ““I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more.”, does that sound like God through Jesus forgives us and then “chooses” to, in effect “forget” them?

This is where my problem is with the saying mentioned above, the idea of forgiving someone but not forgetting is saying we will forgive someone but hold our right to say “remember that time you did that thing!”

Now, God is God, He is so much more than we are but even in the Isaiah verse it says for his own sake He remembers our transgressions no more, as a human I have seen the need to choose to not remember the “transgressions” done against me in order to protect my heart from bitterness otherwise I can get “trapped” in someone else’s wrong doing.

Forgive each other as God forgave us and choose to not remember it as well.

PRAYER: Forgiving Father, I thank you for forgiving me, for not holding my sins against me, for sending your son to pay the price of my transgressions. Help me to forgive and forget, in Jesus name, Amen.

Today's devotion written by Dany Brock, LifeWay Westside.