^^^ THIS. Every time forgiveness is spoken of in Scripture, there is always the condition that the offender must repent (ask for forgiveness).
“14 If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you. 15 But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins. - Matthew 6:14-15
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26 As they were eating, Jesus took some bread and blessed it. Then he broke it in pieces and gave it to the disciples, saying, “Take this and eat it, for this is my body.” 27 And he took a cup of wine and gave thanks to God for it. He gave it to them and said, “Each of you drink from it, 28 for this is my blood, which confirms the covenant between God and his people. It is poured out as a sacrifice to forgive the sins of many. - Matthew 26:26-28
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37 “Do not judge others, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn others, or it will all come back against you. Forgive others, and you will be forgiven. 38 Give, and you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full—pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, running over, and poured into your lap. The amount you give will determine the amount you get back. - Luke 6:37-38
11 We also pray that you will be strengthened with all his glorious power so you will have all the endurance and patience you need. May you be filled with joy, 12 always thanking the Father. He has enabled you to share in the inheritance that belongs to his people, who live in the light. 13 For he has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of his dear Son, 14 who purchased our freedom and forgave our sins. - Col 1:11-14
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13 You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. 14 He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross. 15 In this way, he disarmed[a] the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross.- Col 2:13-14
32 But in spite of this, the people kept sinning. Despite his wonders, they refused to trust him.
33 So he ended their lives in failure,
their years in terror.
34 When God began killing them,
they finally sought him.
They repented and took God seriously.
35 Then they remembered that God was their rock,
that God Most High was their redeemer.
36 But all they gave him was lip service;
they lied to him with their tongues.
37 Their hearts were not loyal to him.
They did not keep his covenant.
38 Yet he was merciful and forgave their sins
and did not destroy them all.
Many times he held back his anger
and did not unleash his fury!
39 For he remembered that they were merely mortal,
gone like a breath of wind that never returns.
- Psalm 78:32-39
I'm Scots Irish hillbilly out of Kentucky...I carry grudges and sleights to my grave....
It's in my DNA......
It was supposed to be funny Church mouse.
Have to forgive, may be a lifelong process, but have to forgive.
When you are fighting against being forgiving, remember just how much forgiveness you need too.
I try to forgive, but when the disrespect and digs are ongoing, it makes it very hard to forgive earlier insults.
My wife's sisters... well, they did some messed up stuff. What the 1st younger one did was messed up, but the 2nd younger one did the same thing, even knowing what the 1st one did, and it hurt my wife. I'm not going to go further than that right now. Just know that when you hurt my wife or my kids, I take it 10 times harder than they do. And I remember that.
So, several years later, we are going to have a family trip with the grandparents and the kids, -1 kid, but that's another story. Anyways, we show up to the accommodations they have booked for the grandparents, all of us, and our kids. They booked this on their fathers dime, and in the interest of saving money, it was a motel off the highway. This is not the typical lodging I arrange for my wife and kids when we're travelling. But, we we were all staying in the same place, and the point of the trip was to be together.
The motel was clean, and the AC worked, so I didn't have anything to really complain about. I mean, I could, but I'm used to better accommodations. Within the first hour, there was someone trying to sell me a sob story and get me to drive him to the local Walmart. Later, we all gathered in one room, and my brother in law mentioned how one sister and the other sister had a bet going as to whether we would stay in the motel, or ditch it and move to the Hilton up the street.
Yeah, while I was close to forgive and forget at that point, that mention of a bet, and I don't care who was on either side of the bet, exposed a back channel that cemented a long-held grudge.
she is repentant and shares this honestly. I am good with her now. And I am glad the family is whole again.
And real family will feel the same way along with you.I'm Scots Irish hillbilly out of Kentucky...I carry grudges and sleights to my grave....
It's in my DNA......
I respect that, and I agree with that, but there are lines that are crossed, that you can never cross back over, and some people need to realize that BEFORE they step over those lines.
Truth. But in the fog of drug abuse those lines do not exist. Nothing that is done to advance that life style is verboten. We have seen it 1st hand to many times. To anyone that says those are victimless crimes and situation I say you are full of human excrement. Those people leave a long trail of victims in their wake.
The SIL knows I still remember everything clearly.
Thankfully, I've never had to deal with anyone afflicted with addiction, and I hope I never do. I'm a big fan of the show Intervention, and I'm always rooting for the people to get clean and clear, and reconstruct their lives and relationships.
The biggest offender on my list is my brother-in-law (wife's brother). This is a permanent, never forgive, never forget entry on my list. There is no reconciliation possible for this. I'll leave out the backstory, but he threatened my wife in a most heinous way, not just out of anger, but out of the evil that inhabits him. Foolishly, he communicated this threat in writing, and I used it to get a restraining order against him, got his guns taken away, and he ended up abandoning his house and losing any equity he may have had in it and moved out of state. This restraining order was in effect when his grandfather passed away. He is a consummate con man and an expert at playing the victim. His ex-wife told us he used to read books about how to manipulate people. He must have used these techniques to influence his other sisters, who pleaded with us to let him attend the funeral. I told them that if I saw him, I would have him arrested. I got wind that the sisters had paid for a plane ticket to get him back home for the funeral, and he was hiding up in the balcony of the church while I had the honor of being a pallbearer. Petty? Maybe, but I'll gladly smoke a turd in hell for that.
There's a lot of after story too, but it's best told over a few beers, and there's a lot of WTFs and laughs along the way.