Have you ever been hurt by someone who you never ever expected it out of?

How did that make you feel?

Angry? Sad? Confused? Frustrated? Crazy?

Sometimes when we are hurt, it is easy to respond with one of these emotions. We get mad. We want revenge. We want them to know how it feels. We don’t want to feel this way, but we do.

I was hurt by a close friend and my initial reaction: anger.

But Jesus doesn’t operate out of anger. Why should I?

I find that when I don’t pray about a situation, I act the complete opposite of how Jesus would. Satan gets a hold of me and I start to become the person that I was before I came to know Christ. I become unforgiving, cold-hearted and angry.

BUT,

When I lean on God for help and healing from the hurt, I become loving, tenderhearted, and forgiving. I feel free from the weight that Satan puts on us because our God is so good.

I forgive because Jesus forgave and continues to forgive me. Because God forgave us, we are now called to forgive one another.

We are imperfect. We sin. We hurt God. We hurt the same God that was beaten, nailed to a cross, and killed so that we may be forgiven. He took the weight of our sins. That is the God we serve and that is the perfect example of how we should love one another.

As difficult as it is to forgive that person who broke your heart, who betrayed you, who said that about you, who insulted you…you can do it through Christ.

We need Him to help us forgive others. Forgiveness doesn’t mean that we think what someone did was okay. It means that we release them from our anger and resentment so that we can heal.

Live like Jesus would. Forgive them. Love them. Pray for them.

As Ephesians 4:32 says,

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving to one another, as God in Christ forgave you.