Bearing the Fruit of Forgiveness

🌄 Good morning!

Saturday’s word is… 📖

Jeremiah 31:34.

“For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”
・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・
What does it mean to “forgive”? 🤔❓️
It means to forget❗️
…
We are caught up in our daily lives…
Yet at times, quite suddenly… 🤔
past mistakes and regrets… 😨
bitter memories return, and we remember old wounds.
Has this ever happened to you?
…
We may remember being hurt by someone,
or wounded by cruel words…
We may think of someone we cannot forgive… 😢
But Jesus forgave us and saved us through the cross ✝️,
and we have been forgiven of our past sins.
Yet if I cannot forgive others—whether in the past, present, or future… 😢
my own sin remains❗️
…
I once met someone like this.
…
They repeatedly told others about how they had been hurt ten or twenty years ago,
as though it had happened only last week.
I warned that person ⚠️
…
“You must forgive that person. Otherwise, you yourself cannot enter heaven❗️”
…
The person immediately replied,
“I have forgiven them❗️ What are you talking about? 😡”
…
I said,
“If you have forgiven that person, why do you keep blaming them for their past sins and speaking ill of them?
If you have truly forgiven them, you should have forgotten❗️
And you would not keep going around telling others about their past sins.”
…
That, I explained, is the evidence—the “fruit”—of forgiveness❗️
…
Just as Jesus forgave us,
even if it takes time, I want us to hold firmly to the decision to forgive❗️

Shalom 😃

This English page translates the Japanese Morning Word provided by At Home Church Okinawa. Scripture quotations are English renderings of the Japanese source, not a separately verified Bible edition.