When I was a kid I lived right on Main St. (US 6) in Butler. I had a friend who lived a couple of blocks away on the same street. We hung out a lot. One summer day his cat got hit on the busy highway and we took it out behind his house, in a field, and buried it. We had a childish funeral service and went our way.

A couple of weeks later we were passing by that spot and decided to dig it up and see how it was doing. We meant well, but learned a valuable lesson. We were more concerned about what we would see than what we would smell. It didn’t take us long to get that cat re interred and never went back again.

That was a gruesome experience for us boys. But the lesson was simple: once you’ve buried something, let it lie. Digging it up from time to time just doesn’t help. And so it is with our sins. When they are buried, we must let them lie. Digging them up again only brings up what once was there. Leave the cat buried!

Tags: cat, forgiveness, sins

Following is a letter written by a real person: “I found my husband with another woman. Although he begged me for forgiveness I wanted my pound of flesh, so I filed for divorce, even though our kids asked me not to. Two years later my husband was still trying to get me back, but I wanted none of it. He’d hurt me and I wanted revenge. Finally, he gave up, married a young widow with 2 children and rebuilt his life without me. They’re all so happy, and I’m just a lonely, miserable woman who let bitterness ruin her life.”

There is no question that infidelity is wrong. But without forgiveness,bitterness is all that’s left! There comes a point at which anger is no longer just an emotion – its a driving force. Like cocaine, you need larger and more frequent doses. Once that happens, you move even further from forgiveness, because without your anger you’ve no source of energy at all. It’s what drives hate groups like the KKK and the Skinheads.

God says, “Forgive anyone who does you wrong…as Christ has forgiven you” (Colossians 3:13), because bitterness is fatal.

Tags: bitterness, divorce, forgiveness

Back during the days of the Cold War following World War II, victorious Russia, not trusting anybody, blockaded the capitol city of Berlin between West Berlin, under the control of the American Army, and East Berlin, under the control of the Russian Army. There was tense hostility between the two cities and the now-infamous Berlin Wall was soon to be constructed. To demonstrate their dislike of the free West, the communists in East Berlin one day took a truck load of garbage and dumped it across the line into West Berlin.

The people of the West could have retaliated, but instead dumped a truckload of valuable food supplies over onto the East Berlin side. Above it they placed a sign: ‘EACH GIVES WHAT HE HAS’.

What do you have to give your enemy? Bitterness and resentment, or grace and blessing. The choice will be determined by what’s really in our heart. Think about it.

Tags: blessings, forgiveness, mercy, World War II

Corrie ten Boom told about a little girl who once broke a beatiful antique cup of her mother’s. She was very sad about it and took the pieces to her mother. Her mother said, “I can see that you are very sorry. I forgive you. Throw the pieces in the trash can.”

The next day the little girl saw the pieces in the trash can. She took them out and again went to her motehr and said: “Mommy, yesterday I broke this cup. Please forgive me.”

“Leave those pieces in the trash can and only remmeber the forgiveness,” her mother said.

Are we not like the little girl sometimes? We ask God for forgiveness again and again for the same sin. We keep dregging up memories of it, but God doesn’t.

We are guilty! God knows it. What penalty does that deserve? The death penalty? Jesus paid it. What more can he do? Which is easier to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven’, or ‘Take up your bed and walk’? Since you’ve already been forgiven, pick up your bed and start walking like Christ!

Tags: forgiveness

The story is told that just before Leonardo da Vinci painted the faces of the disciples on ‘The Last Supper’ painting, da Vinci had a terrible argument with a fellow artist. He determined to paint his fellow artist’s face into the portrait as that of Judas Iscariot, and thus take revenge by handing down the man in infamy and scorn to succeeding generations. Thus the face of Judas was one of the first he finished, and everyone could easily recognize the face of the painter with whom he had quarreled.

However, when he came to paint the face of Christ he couldn’t make any progress at all. Something seemed to be frustrating even his best efforts. At length he came to the decision that the cause of this difficulty was in his bitterness and lack of forgiveness toward his fellow painter. He came to the conclusion that you cannot at the same time be painting the features of Christ into your own life, and painting another with the colors of hatred and enmity.

Is there someone in your life you need to forgive?

Tags: da Vinci, forgiveness

James Garfield was a lay preacher and principal of his denominational college. They say he was ambidextrious and could simultaneously write Greek with one hand and Latin with the other.

In 1880, he was elected president of the United States, but after only six months in office, he was shot in the back with a revolver. He never lost consciousness. At the hopital, the doctor probed the wound with his little finger to seek the bullet. He couldn’t find it, so he tried a silver tipped probe. Still he couldn’t locate the bullet.

They took Garfield back to Washington, D.C. Despite the summer heat, they tried to keep him comfortable. he was growing very weak. Teams of doctors tried to locate the bullet, probing the wound over and over. In desperation they asked Alexander Graham Bell, who was working on a little device called the telephone, to see if he could locate the metal inside the president’s body. He came, he sought, and he too failed.

The president hung on through July, through August, but in September he finally died – not from the woulnd, but from infection. The repeated probing, which the physicians thought would help the man, eventually killed.

Do you think its possible for Christians to spend too long dwelling on their sin and refuse to release it to God?

Tags: forgiveness, Garfield, probing, sin