HELEN SANDERS
6-17-2021
HAVING A GOOD FORGETTER
One of the hardest things for most of us is to forgive and forget. One lady I ministered to said, I can forgive, but I cannot forget what they did to me. I believe there is no forgiveness without forgetting because that is the way God forgives. He forgives and then forgets the sin in his sea of forgetfulness.
The Apostle Paul reiterated this in Philippians 3:13 where he said, “Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are ahead.” Most of the time we use this verse for ourselves, forgetting our past, but it also applies to those that have sinned against us. We must forget what they did, or we will become bitter.
It is hard to understand that God forgives our sins and then “forgets” them. When we repent and ask for forgiveness, He lays our sin upon Jesus and balances the books against us or justifies us through the blood of Jesus. They are never remembered again by God. God is infinite, and it is not easy to understand how he can do this, but He does, and we have to accept this by faith.
Do you have a good forgetter, or are you bound by your past, and bind other persons by their past too? Forgiveness and then forgetting what a person has done is one of the greatest gifts you can give someone. It releases you and releases them.
If Jesus took the pain of crucifixion, humiliation, rejection, mocking and the beating of the final hours of his life to release us from sin, and said in Luke 23:34, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do,” certainly we can do the same for others. It is a choice to be a good forgetter, but it is the best way to live. I pray if you aren’t doing this that you ask the Lord to help you to become one. If you are doing this, I praise God for that, because you live in freedom!
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