ICS Daily Devotions
Forgiveness Prospers My Soul
Matthew 5:23-24 (NKJV) Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.
In the above passage, Jesus encourages us to reconcile with the brother (or sister) who has something against us before we come into the presence of God. We might find it difficult to receive the love of God if we do not deal with human relationships well. Both the horizontal and vertical relationships affect each other. We will not have a good vertical relationship with God if we are experiencing bad horizontal relationships with people. Therefore, we need to work on the horizontal relationship by reaching out for reconciliation as soon as possible. That is how we can keep the joy, love and peace in our lives. It is the abundant life that God wants us to enjoy.
We need to accept that not everyone wants reconciliation even though we are taught to reconcile with those who have hurt or offended us. Nevertheless, forgiveness is still possible if we choose to release the person rather than to “imprison” the person by holding grudges and resentment. Forgiveness breaks the power that allows the past incident to continue tormenting us in the realm of the soul.
We live in a broken world. All of us will have different experiences in the course of our time on earth. Some might have been hurt by the betrayal of a spouse or business partner, some might have been offended by the words and actions of others, and some might even have experienced a traumatic incident of being physically abused at some point in their lives. It is never easy. We are not belittling the experience nor the trauma that came with it. One thing we need to acknowledge is that our soul in the aspect of our feelings, emotions and mental health will not be prospering if we revisit those offences periodically. The wounds in our lives will continue to be raw because of the constant thoughts of the scene and the words uttered replaying in our minds. What we should actually do is to acknowledge that it has happened and it has brought about pain and hurt. When we do that, we are telling ourselves that we have dealt with it and will never ever want to visit that pain again. The healing process will take place when we take this first step of releasing it to God. Thereafter, we should invite the Lord into our lives, bring the person and the incident before the Lord. We choose to release the person who has hurt us to the Lord, through an act of forgiveness. We might not even need to meet up with the person who has caused this hurt and pain. We invite God into our lives, and we ask for His healing and restoration. When we begin to do this, then the soul will begin to prosper again.
Sermon Series – Is Your Soul Prospering
