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"Take heed to yourselves: if thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive him. And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again to thee, saying, I repent; thou shalt forgive him." "If a brother errs, forgive him if he asks you. If he is not humble enough to ask, forgive him in your heart, and express your forgiveness in word and action. Then the weight of his sin will not in any degree rest on you. 'Considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.' . . . And we are not only to forgive seven times, but seventy times seven. Just as often as God forgives us, we are to forgive another. "One man is never to say to another, 'When I see that you have reformed, then I will forgive you.' This is not God's plan. This is in accordance with the promptings of human nature. By showing that you do not desire fellow-ship with your brother, you not only hurt his soul and your own, but you also wound and bruise the heart of Christ." "Forgive your brother from your heart. " "Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: and be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you." "But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses." "He who refuses to forgive is thereby casting away his own hope of pardon." "It is true that he may once have received forgiveness; but his unmerciful spirit shows that he now rejects God's pardoning love. He has separated himself from God, and is in the same condition as before he was forgiven. He has denied his repentance, and his sins are upon him as if he had not repented." |