Ephesians 4:32 Be kind and
compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God
forgave you.
When it
comes to a question of our forgiving other people, it is partly the same and
partly different. It is the same because, here also, forgiving does not mean
excusing. Many people seem to think it does. They think that if you ask them to
forgive someone who has cheated or bullied them you are trying to make out that
there was really no cheating or no bullying. But if that were so, there would
be nothing to forgive. They keep on replying, "But I tell you the man
broke a most solemn promise." Exactly: that is precisely what you have to
forgive. (This doesn't mean that you must necessarily believe his next promise.
It does mean that you must make every effort to kill every taste of resentment
in your own heart—every wish to humiliate or hurt him or to pay him out.) The
difference between this situation and the one in which you are asking God's
forgiveness is this. In our own case we accept excuses too easily; in other
people's we do not accept them easily enough.
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