Something’s missing in our world today. The same thing is missing in our churches. And, if you’re willing to look closely, the same thing is missing in our families. This can mean only one thing… that the same thing is missing in you and me.
Can you guess what it is? It’s peace. What we desperately want and need, we don’t have. We talk about it… dream about it… pray for it… and hope for it! Yet, it continues to elude us. Why? Because we are unwilling to do one very important thing… forgive.
God says, “Forgive anyone you are holding a grudge against.” (Mark 11:25) Peace comes by forgiving.
A lady was upset because her mother-in-law forgot to ask her to a family picnic. So, when her son called on the morning of the event to invite her, she replied angrily, “It’s too late – I’ve already prayed for rain!” When we’re hurting, we want someone to pay, so we lash out at others. One lady writes, “I was so angry, I spent years trying to collect what I thought was due, from people who had nothing to do with my hurt. When I accepted this, God began to bless me beyond anything I could have ever imagined.
One night after preaching about forgiveness, Corrie Ten Boom recognized that the man approaching her was a former guard from Ravensbruck, the Nazi prison camp where she was tortured and her sister Betsie starved to death. When he asked her to forgive him, Corrie thought about Betsie, and felt she couldn’t do it. Nevertheless, she knew she must, otherwise everything she’d preached would be meaningless. So she told God, “I can extend my hand, I can do that much.” Taking the man’s hand, she felt God’s power rushing through her, enabling her to wholeheartedly say, “I forgive you.”
I pray that you will follow Christ’s example, and Corrie’s, and extend the “hand” of forgiveness to the person with whom you are holding a grudge of unforgiveness. It is the only way to have peace. Remember, a grudge is an unbearable weight. It will always crush the one carrying it.
Valley Community Church is located at 25222 Wiley Canyon Road in Newhall. For more information, please call 661-259-4366 and visit www.valleycommunitychurch.com or like us on Face Book.