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Forgiven as We Forgive, May 5
For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with
what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
Matthew 7:2
.
We can receive forgiveness from God only as we forgive others. It
is the love of God that draws us unto Him, and that love cannot touch
our hearts without creating love for our brethren.
After completing the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus added: “If ye forgive
men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: but
if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive
your trespasses.”
Matthew 6:14, 15
. He who is unforgiving cuts off the
very channel through which alone he can receive mercy from God. We
should not think that unless those who have injured us confess the wrong
we are justified in withholding from them our forgiveness. It is their
part, no doubt, to humble their hearts by repentance and confession; but
we are to have a spirit of compassion toward those who have trespassed
against us, whether or not they confess their faults.
Nothing can justify an unforgiving spirit. He who is unmerciful
toward others shows that he himself is not a partaker of God’s pardoning
grace. In God’s forgiveness the heart of the erring one is drawn close
to the great heart of Infinite Love. The tide of divine compassion flows
into the sinner’s soul, and from him to the souls of others....
We are not forgiven
because
we forgive, but
as
we forgive. The
ground of all forgiveness is found in the unmerited love of God, but by
our attitude toward others we show whether we have made that love our
own. Wherefore Christ says, “With what judgment ye judge, ye shall be
judged.”
Let Christ, the divine Life dwell in you and through you reveal
the heaven-born love that will inspire hope in the hopeless and bring
heaven’s peace to the sin-stricken heart. As we come to God, this is the
condition which meets us at the threshold, that, receiving mercy from
Him, we yield ourselves to reveal His grace to others.
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