Daily Journal: 26 July

Nurturing Forgiveness

Relationship is all about nurturing and forgiveness. We could say, relationship is all about nurturing forgiveness.

It’s all about relationship. It’s about restoring relationship and being at peace with others. It’s about finding restoration and peace within our own heart through forgiveness. It comes from a position of extravagant love. We can’t extend that nurturing and that forgiveness unless we have first experienced it.

2 Corinthians 2:10-11 (NCV)

If you forgive someone, I also forgive him. And what I have forgiven—if I had anything to forgive—I forgave it for you, as if Christ were with me. I did this so that Satan would not win anything from us, because we know very well what Satan’s plans are.

Paul, the writer here, discharged any offense to himself in the presence of Christ, under Christ’s command to forgive. He makes it clear that in all cases of offense, it is Satan’s agenda to break bonds of affection and unity between people.

James 4:1 (NIV)

What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you?

Satan will use that battle within to destroy relationships. Relationship in the presence of Christ, nurtures. To nurture forgiveness means that my heart carries a cushion of grace towards another, despite differences of perception.

Relationship with others is central to nearness with God.

I pray that we know the heart to nurture and to forgive establishes our ability to live with peace in our own heart and peace in our relationships.