OH MAN, DO I HAVE TO?

Mathew 6: 9 – 15
When I have been wronged, I can think of thousands of reasons why I don't want to forgive and why I shouldn't have to. I like to think of little ways that I can seek revenge, imagine creative and artistic ways to torture those whom I have perceived as needing this to happen to them. I laugh quietly to myself, like Renfield, as I roll these thoughts around in my head.
When I have trouble forgiving people that I need to, all I do is make myself more angry, and if they are aware of it, I make the offending party feel guilty longer than they have to, using it like a hammer to pound them over the head until they beg me to stop.
How's that for a Christian attitude?
Sound familiar?
The problem with this attitude is that it separates us from God, and that ain't good. Time after time, when we read God's word we see that to be forgiven, we must forgive.
12 Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
15 But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
That's twice in three verses, and we know that if things in the Bible are repeated, God really wants us to pay attention to them, so he must mean this whole forgiveness thing and, that even if I struggle with it, well, then it's tough toenails for me.
But beyond that, I can identify three pragmatic reasons.
First, forgiveness halts the cycle of blame and pain, breaking the chain of ungrace. Without it we remain bound to the people we can’t forgive, held in their vise grip.
Second, forgiveness loosens the stranglehold of guilt in the perpetrator. It allows the possibility of transformation in the guilty party, even if a just punishment is still required.
And third, forgiveness creates a remarkable linkage, placing the forgiver on the same side as the party who did the wrong. Two wrongs don't make a right.
I love God but I hate that whole “iron sharpens iron” thing. When I learn a lesson and try to implement what I have learned, it hurts because I am not used to it.
Learning to forgive and go to my brother that I have a resentment against to work it out has beena long hard lesson. Yet, it has been a valuable one.

When I consider Calvary’s dismay

The shame, the scorn, the scourging borne by You

Resentment melts; I am compelled to say,

“Forgive them, Lord, they know not what they do!” Mollon

He who cannot forgive others burns the bridge over which he himself must pass. Herbert