How long is forever?
We hear it all time, and then the divorce happens. The flower dies. That special thing we loved so much is gone forever...and ever...and for a day.
How can something of this world last forever?
In Genesis Joseph was wronged in the worst possible way. Immersed in the security of a prosperous family, he was betrayed by his brothers and sold to slavers. He endured 22 years of slavery, imprisonment, and separation from his father.
Yet, when his brothers bowed before him, and he had the power to strike them down in revenge, he chose to forgive them instead.
He proved his forgiveness by heaping upon them the very best Egypt had to offer. In spite of all his assurances, when Jacob their father died seventeen years later, Joseph’s brothers still doubted him. In Genesis 50:15-21, now that Jacob was dead, Joseph’s brothers were convinced he would hate them and pay them back for all the evil they had done. They came before him, pleading for his forgiveness once again.
In the passage Joseph breaks into tears, because he forgave them seventeen years earlier. He had to reassure them once again that what they had meant for evil, God meant for good, and he would continue to provide for them.
Joseph had forgiven his brothers completely. When we choose to forgive a wrong done us, it is completely forgiven.
There is another reality, though. The truth is that what we would choose to let go, the devil will bring up to us over and over, trusting the remnants of the old man inside of us to slide back into sinfulness. We must never fall into the devil’s clutches and let the old frustration and anger take a new hold.
What is the final confirmation we have embraced true forgiveness? We never let the remembrance of the wrong come into our minds ever again.
God’s central theme in his Word is that of forgiveness. He forgives us over and over, and when we cast our sins upon him, he throws them as far as the east is from the west, and they are forgotten.
How can we not do the same for those who have done us wrong?
When we forgive those who have done us wrong, it is proof Christ lives in us, and that we are his children.
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