More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Started reading
March 1, 2023
If we allow the root of bitterness to spring up in our hearts against someone, our prayers will not be answered.
The Bible teaches very plainly that we are adopted into the family of God. If all were sons, God would not need to adopt any.
If we are doing the will of God, that is a very good sign that we are born of God. If we have no desire to do that will, how can we call God “Our Father?”
And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors (Matthew 6:12). This is the only part of the prayer that Christ explained. For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions (Matthew 6:14-15). Notice that when you go into the door of God’s kingdom, you go in through the door of forgiveness.
I never knew of a man getting a blessing in his own soul if he was not willing to forgive others. If we are unwilling to forgive others, God cannot forgive us. I do not know how language could be more plain than it is in these words of our Lord. I firmly believe a great many prayers are not answered because we are not willing to forgive someone.
How can you ask God to forgive you? If I am not willing to forgive those who may have committed some single offense against me, what a mean, contemptible thing it would be for me to ask God to forgive the ten thousand sins of which I have been guilty!
Therefore if you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering (Matthew 5:23-24).
Does anyone have anything against you? Is there someone who thinks you have done them wrong? Perhaps you haven’t, but maybe they think you have. I will tell you what I would do before I go to sleep tonight; I would go and see them, and have the question settled. You will find that you will be greatly blessed in the very act.
“There is one woman I never will forgive.” “Oh,” I said, “I have got at your difficulty; it is no use my going on to pray, for your prayers will not go higher than my head. God says he will not forgive you unless you forgive others. If you do not forgive this woman, God will never forgive you. That is the decree of heaven.”
If there is someone who has anything at all against you, go at once and be reconciled. If you have anything against anyone, write them a letter telling them you forgive them, and so have this thing removed from your conscience.
“There is an ugly kind of forgiveness in the world – a kind of hedgehog forgiveness, shot out like quills. Men take one who has offended, and set him down before the blowpipe of their indignation, and scorch him, and burn his fault into him. And when they have kneaded him sufficiently with their fists, then they forgive him.”
“We do not forgive our offending brother aright nor acceptably, if we do not forgive him from the heart, for it is that [which] God looks at. No malice must be harbored there, nor ill-will to any; no projects of revenge must be hatched there, nor desires of it, as there are in many who outwardly appear peaceful and reconciled. We must from the heart desire and seek the welfare of those who have offended us.”32
In a passage in Ezekiel it says not one of our sins will be mentioned; isn’t that like God? All his transgressions which he has committed will not be remembered against him; because of his righteousness which he has practiced, he will live (Ezekiel 18:22).
The voice of sin may be loud, but the voice of forgiveness is louder.
