Learning to Forgive

Communication?Leadership?

Divorce?Stability??

2Corinthians 2

Verse 7, “… you ought rather to forgive …”

Verse 8, “…reaffirm your love...”

2Corinthians 2

Verse 7, “… you ought rather to forgive …”

Verse 8, “…reaffirm your love...”

NOT!

“…love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her…” (Ephesians 5:25). “So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies…” (Ephesians 5:28).“…love his own wife as himself… (Ephesians 5:33).

“…admonish the young women to love their husbands…” (Titus 2:4).

“One of the most miserable men I ever met was a professed Christian who actually kept in a notebook a list of the wrongs he felt others had committed against him. Forgiveness means that we wipe the record clean and never hold things against people.”

“So he answered and said to his father, 'Lo, these many years I have been serving you; I never transgressed your commandment at any time; and yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might make merry with my friends. But as soon as this son of yours came, who has devoured your livelihood with harlots, you killed the fatted calf for him” (Luke 15:29-30).

“And Joseph said to his brothers, ‘Please come near to me.’ So they came near. Then he said: ‘I am Joseph your brother, whom you sold into Egypt. 5 But now, do not therefore be grieved or angry with yourselves because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life’” (Genesis 45:4-5).

“Joseph said to them, ‘Do not be afraid, for am I in the place of God? 20 But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive’” (Genesis 50:19-20).

Their mistakes?Our misunderstanding?

HUMANITY

“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the LORD your God is giving you” (Exodus 20:12). “‘Honor your father and mother,’ which is the first commandment with promise” (Ephesians 6:10).“But if any widow has children or grandchildren, let them first learn to show piety at home and to repay their parents; for this is good and acceptable before God.” (1Timothy 5:4).

“And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4).

Adam and Eve with CainNoah and Ham

Lot and his DaughtersDavid and His Family

The Father of the Prodigal Son

Peter: “Then he began to curse and swear, saying, ‘I do not know the Man!’ Immediately a rooster crowed” (Matthew 26:74).Judas: “Then Judas, His betrayer, seeing that He had been condemned, was remorseful and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, ‘I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.’ And they said, ‘What is that to us? You see to it!’ Then he threw down the pieces of silver in the temple and departed, and went and hanged himself” (Matthew 27:3-5).

“Dwelling in the past regret prevents future accomplishment.”

“For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (Matthew 6:14-15).

“…you ought rather to forgive…” (1Corinthians 2:7).

“Holding a grudge is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die…”