Quotes about Forgiveness

Because you are human, you will continue to make mistakes. Thinking that you should live an error-free life is symptomatic of pride.

When someone mistreats you, try to view it as an opportunity to grow in grace. See how quickly you can forgive the one who has wounded you. Don't be concerned about setting the record straight. Instead of obsessing about other people's opinions of you, keep your focus on Me. Ultimately, it is My view of you that counts.

TO LIVE AT PEACE WITH EVERYONE, you need to control not only what you say and do but also what you think. When you indulge in negative thinking about someone, your relationship with that person is damaged. Those hurtful thoughts also affect your relationship with Me, and they may have a depressive effect on you. The remedy lies in seeking My forgiveness, then asking My Spirit to help you think My thoughts. This is the way of Life and Peace.

YOUR CURRENT SITUATION may feel like a gigantic mistake to you—something you should have been able to prevent. I urge you not to indulge in obsessing about what you could have done differently, for that is an exercise in unreality: The past cannot be different from what has actually occurred. I want to help you make a new beginning instead, starting right where you are.

DON'T BE SO HARD ON YOURSELF. I can bring good even out of your mistakes. Your finite mind tends to look backward, longing to undo decisions you have come to regret. This is a waste of time and energy, leading only to frustration. Instead of floundering in the past, release your mistakes to Me. Look to Me in trust, anticipating that My infinite creativity can weave both good choices and bad into a lovely design. Because you are human, you will continue to make mistakes. Thinking that you

If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.—ROMANS 12:18

IF IT IS POSSIBLE, AS FAR AS IT DEPENDS ON YOU, LIVE AT PEACE WITH EVERYONE. Most people prefer to live peacefully with others, but when there are conflicts, many wait for the other person to make the first move. Problems inevitably arise when both parties wait for the other to take the first step.

Community is like peace in that it is a result instead of an action. Peace results from acts of justice and behaviors of love. Community also emerges out of loving behaviors—like compassion and an embrace and forgiveness — and out of acts of justice.

Jesus is teaching a kingdom perspective on how to deal with those who have sinned against us. Since the kingdom is a world of reconciliation, kingdom people are to forgive.

He's staring into the face of fellow Israelites who don't know the grace of enemy love and who want to appeal too quickly to the lex talionis or who want to become judges like God (7:1—5; cf. Jas 4:11—12). Moreover, that same audience needed to hear that forgiveness is the way kingdom living works. Those who genuinely love others forgive. Those who don't are not kingdom people.

Before we can begin to see the cross as something done for us (leading us to faith and worship), we have to see it as something done by us (leading us to repentance)." And: "As we face the cross, then, we can say to ourselves both 'I did it, my sins sent him there' and 'he did it, his love took him there.

when we peer into our own hearts, we will have sufficient cause — even laughably ridiculous cause — to see our own sin and be humbled before God. That will lead us to an other-awareness that our fellow disciples and humans are like us, sinners in need of mercy, grace, forgiveness, and patience. This reversal of the proclivity to be gods creates on our part a tenderness in our perception of the sins of others.