A Prayer to Cultivate a Heart of Forgiveness
By Lynette Kittle
Bible Reading
“Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you” - Colossians 3:13
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Where does forgiveness begin? And how do we cultivate it in our lives? Is it something we can stir up within ourselves, willing ourselves to forgive? Not at all, because forgiveness is not something we draw from within ourselves. Rather, it comes from drawing it from Christ Jesus and the forgiveness He gives us.
Ephesians 4:32 urges, “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”
When we receive God’s forgiveness through Jesus, receiving His free gift, we are receiving an unending source of forgiveness that springs forth from Him. When we tap into it, we surrender our claim to holding an unforgiving heart towards anyone else.
How God’s Forgiveness Works
God’s forgiveness has stipulations that many of us just breeze over, not often paying much attention to them, especially when we are holding unforgiveness in our hearts. But as Matthew 6:14 points out, “For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, Your heavenly Father will also forgive you.” Many believers tend to skip right over these words, believing God can forgive us of our sins, even though none of us deserve it because we haven’t earned it, but when it comes to forgiving others, that’s another story.
It's funny how some of us believe it’s up to us to decide who deserves forgiveness and, if so, what route they have to go to receive it from us, like saying the right words, the ones we want them to say to make it right in our eyes. The trouble is that God doesn’t give us discretion in choosing whom we forgive based on our reasoning and rationalization. He doesn’t even exempt us from forgiving those who have done unspeakable things. Yet Jesus made it clear in Matthew 6:15, “But if you do not forgive others their sins, Your Father will not forgive your sins.”
Cultivating Forgiveness Includes Self-examination
Truthfully, none of us deserve God’s forgiveness, a stark reality that many individuals are unwilling to accept, rejecting the truth that they are in no way, by no effort or merit of their own, deserving of God’s forgiveness. It’s looking at the speck in another person’s eye while missing the plank in our own that Jesus addressed in Matthew 7:3-5:
“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”
Often, we compare ourselves to others, thinking we’re not so bad, so God didn’t really have to do much to forgive us. But, this pride misleads us when we consider ourselves more deserving than others to receive His forgiveness. We’re basing our Salvation on ourselves rather than receiving it through the finished work of Jesus on the cross. It’s self-justifying ourselves rather than being justified by Christ based on what we consider our own moral goodness. But like Romans 4:25 explains, only Jesus can justify us.
“He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.”
Cultivating Forgiveness by Receiving Forgiveness for Ourselves
Looking at ourselves and seeing how much God has forgiven us helps us cultivate a heart of forgiveness toward others rather than seeing how much we think they need forgiveness. Receiving forgiveness for ourselves softens the hardness of our hearts that unforgiveness creates within us. It’s the key to cultivating it for those around us.
Let’s Pray:
Dear Father,
How can we ever express enough our hearts’ gratitude for the forgiveness You give us through Jesus Christ? It’s Your forgiveness that cleanses us and makes us righteous in Your sight, freeing us from the power of sin. We sincerely ask today, and each and every day, for You to soften and cultivate forgiveness within our hearts. Take away any hardness that may have built up over the years and try to keep us from forgiving each other. Help us to forgive each other, as You have so graciously forgiven us. O Lord, may Your forgiveness flow freely from Your heart through ours to those around us.
In Jesus’ name, amen.
Photo credit: ©GettyImages/fizkes
Lynette Kittle is married with four daughters. She enjoys writing about faith, marriage, parenting, relationships, and life. Her writing has been published by Focus on the Family, Decision, Today’s Christian Woman, kirkcameron.com, Ungrind.org, StartMarriageRight.com, and more. She has a M.A. in Communication from Regent University and serves as associate producer for Soul Check TV.
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