"To the Lord our God belong mercies and forgiveness, though we have rebelled against Him” (Daniel 9:9).

The inability to forgive is a toxin. It poisons the heart and mind with bitterness, distorting one’s perspective on life. Anger, resentment, and sorrow begin to overshadow and overwhelm the unforgiving person. It’s a sort of soul-pollution that inflames evil appetites and evil emotions. Forgiveness is the only antidote.

I think it is very significant that Jesus Christ made a follow-up commentary on only one portion of The Lord’s Prayer. In Matthew 6:12, He says, “And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” Then in verses 14 and 15 our Lord expands the idea by supplying this extra comment, “For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”

The apostle Paul picks up the theme in his letters to the Ephesians and the Colossians. “And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you” (Ephesians 4:32). “Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye” (Colossians 3:13).

If my need of forgiveness from God is thwarted by my unforgiving spirit toward a brother, then I have actually made grudge-holding more important than my salvation. My desire to hold a charge against someone becomes more sacred to me than a relationship with Christ.

So why do we hold out? Why are we so reluctant to forgive? It has to be a matter of personal pride. At that point, pride has become our god, and self-justification has become our redemption.

In one sense, forgiveness is Christianity operating at its highest level, and it is absolutely essential for smooth, interpersonal relationships. Let me be the first to admit that it is only possible through God’s intervention.

To forgive is actually the ministry of forgetting self for the benefit of others. Have you ever heard the old adage, “I will forgive, but I can’t forget?” That kind of forgiveness is no forgiveness at all. And it is not a godly principle. God, Himself, is willing to forgive and forget. Listen to His voice: “… for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more” (Jeremiah 31:34). And in another place: “I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins” (Isaiah 43:25).

Forgiveness is bearing the suffering of another’s wrong and letting the wrongdoer go free from our retaliation and grudge-holding. Offered unconditionally, just as we have experienced it from God, forgiveness restores the peace of the wounded one and paves the way for a response from the offender.

Although some consequences may be so irreversible as to prohibit full restoration, when the offered forgiveness is accepted in a spirit of repentance and change, the relationship stands at the threshold of a new beginning.