Forgiving Others
The capacity to forgive others requires cooperation
The ability to forgive others requires work on our
part, for we must cooperate with the grace that comes as a gift of the Holy
Spirit. Since we have been forgiven much, we, in turn, must forgive much. The
Lord Himself told us that we must forgive our brother seventy times seventy, no
easy feat, to be sure. Yet it is this same Lord Who gives us the power, and the
will, to be quick to forgive those who have hurt or offended us. It is this very
Christ Who demonstrated the importance of forgiving others when He forgave
those who were crucifying Him. "Lord, forgive them, for they know not what
they do (Luke 23:34)."
The capacity to forgive is directly related to the
capacity to love, and it is in our act of forgiving others that we find
forgiveness. For it is in the turning away from our own self-concern, and our
own self-will, that we begin to see that our salvation is directly linked to
the salvation of our neighbor. To refuse to forgive our neighbor, is do cease
having the capacity to love, "for he who does not love his brother whom he
has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen (1 John 4:20)?"
With
love in Christ,
Abbot
Tryphon
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