This week two of my daughter\u2019s best friends played a practical joke on her and it was NOT funny.<\/p>\n
The hurt, anger, and betrayal she felt when she figured out who played the \u201cjoke\u201d won\u2019t be forgotten anytime soon, but now that the truth is revealed and the tears and venting are over, what\u2019s next?<\/p>\n
We all know what God tells us to do, but man, it\u2019s really hard to forgive when we are hurting. We feel like forgiving an offender is saying that what was done was okay. The reality is that forgiving isn\u2019t primarily for the person being forgiven, it\u2019s mostly for the person who was hurt. It\u2019s the process of handing our pain and desire for justice over to God rather than fixating on the hurt. Fixation only prolongs and grows the pain, while handing it over to God allows for healing.<\/p>\n
Forgiveness is not optional. It is demanded of us:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n -In Luke 6:28 Jesus says, \u201cBless those who curse you, pray for those who hurt you.\u201d This does not mean we have to \u201cforgive and forget.\u201d We can\u2019t always and often shouldn\u2019t forget the hurts done to us, but we can trust that God will heal us and use the pain for good, but we have to be willing to surrender it to him for that to happen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This week two of my daughter\u2019s best friends played a practical joke on her and it was NOT funny. The hurt, anger, and betrayal she felt when she figured out who played the \u201cjoke\u201d won\u2019t be forgotten anytime soon, but now that the truth is revealed and the tears and venting are over, what\u2019s next? […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":7309,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[195,59,113,294],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adults","category-church-news","category-newsletters","category-thoughtful-thursday"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefount.church\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefount.church\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefount.church\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefount.church\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefount.church\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7369"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thefount.church\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7369\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7370,"href":"https:\/\/thefount.church\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7369\/revisions\/7370"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefount.church\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefount.church\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefount.church\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefount.church\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n-In Matthew 6:14, Jesus says, \u201cFor if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.\u201d
\n-And in Luke 17:3-4 Jesus says, \u201cIf another believer\u00a0sins, rebuke that person; then if there is repentance, forgive.\u00a0Even if that person wrongs you seven times a day and each time turns again and asks forgiveness, you must forgive.\u201d<\/p>\n