If you'd like to watch, click on Pastor Squatch Musings!

“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.”

Matthew 18:15, ESV

If we have been wronged, we tend to wait for the other to come to us and ask for our forgiveness, but our Lord, Jesus Christ, calls us to be different. If we have been hurt, we are called to offer forgiveness for the hurt that has been caused and hope that the one who has hurt us will accept the forgiveness. The difficulty that can arise is that a brother or sister in Christ may not believe they need your forgiveness or that they have even done anything wrong. This is not the point. If you are hurt and allow that hurt to fester, it will grow into something that will bring greater harm to you. In offering forgiveness, you release yourself from that hurt. We pray that they accept it, and we are called to humbly offer it to them. Our Lord desires for us to gently and calmly let them know the hurt that has been caused and how it has damaged the relationship, and the hope is that they will also want to keep the relationship. If they accept, wonderful! If not, we can move on with the hope of restoring that relationship with the help of friends in the faith. God desires for us to walk with forgiving hearts and to seek after His peace.

Let us pray. I thank you, my heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ, your dear Son, that you have kept me this night from all harm and danger, and I ask you to protect me this day also from sin and every evil, that in all I do today, I may please you. For into your hands, I commend myself, my body and soul, and all that is mine. Let your holy angel watch over me, that the wicked foe have no power over me. Amen.