The Wages Of Unforgiveness

Unforgiveness will pay you some wages that you don*t want to be paid. It will be a barrier between you and God. If you are unforgiving He will not hear your prayers. I believe that many Christian lives are unfruitful and are ruined by unforgiveness.

Isaiah 59:2: But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.

Matthew 6:12: And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

When believers pray the Lord*s prayer, many unwittingly ask the Lord NOT to forgive their sins when they harbor unforgiveness for others. If God forgave their debts as they forgave their debtors He would not forgive them at all.

Matthew 6:14-15: For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: 15 But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

Like many other graces, if the forgiveness of God comes to you, it should go through you to others. If the mercy of God comes to you, it should go through you to others. If we don*t forgive until we get revenge we add another sin to our pile of sins. We have all committed greater sins against our Creator than anyone on earth has committed against us. Even if an offender*s sins against us were worse than ours, unforgiveness is not an option for us if we want to be one-hundred percent right with God.

Romans 12:19: Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.

James 2:10: For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.

If the offender a Christian forgives is unrepentant, that unrepentance is like a shell that keeps the forgiveness from penetrating all the way to the offender*s heart. A Christian*s forgiveness must go all the way to that shell. Unforgiveness is still not an option.

I have known several individuals who claim to be Christians but speak often about bad things that were done to them in the past and grudges they have held, even decades into the past. I wonder if they have forgiven the offenders. I wonder if they have been out of touch with God for all those years. If I have been carrying a grudge for any length of time, during the time I have been carrying it, I have not been as right with God as I could have been.

Like any other sin, unforgiveness must be confessed and forsaken.

Proverbs 28:13: He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.

Now that we have read Matthew 6:15, our excuses are all gone.

Care to discuss Wages Of Unforgiveness, The with Ron?

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