the practice of forgiveness

Roberto has been talking about principles and practices that help us maintain and grow in our emotional health. And today I want to continue more or less in that line by adding one more practice and it is the practice of forgiveness. Before being whipped by the word, I want to acknowledge that in this church there are thousands, hundreds, of testimonials from people who have practiced precisely what I am going to do today: forgiveness.

I have been ministered to by the forgiveness that I have seen you exercise and give so generously in your lives. Among us there are people who have been betrayed by a husband, by a wife, who have been betrayed by a child, people who have suffered children who have died from the murder of another person. And I want to honor you by letting you know that your testimony is powerful within this town and is not overlooked. And if I, a human, don't overlook it, the Lord does not. The Lord is pleased with you when you have exercised that privilege that you have, that mandate to forgive in your lives. So I thank you for the living testimony that you give in the midst of your people of those acts of forgiveness.

Who doesn't need to be forgiven? Have any of you ever committed an offense that needs to be forgiven? No one would dare raise their hand, right? Which of you has not been offended that you have had to forgive? We all fall into that category, no one escapes. While we are in this mortal world we are going to be offended and we are going to offend, sometimes not intentionally but it is part of human nature.

And I recognize that one of the practices that we have to take into account and grow in it is the practice of forgiving others. When we don't forgive others we are stagnant, we stop growing. And I believe that there is no marriage, a husband relationship, a parent-child relationship, a sibling relationship, a family relationship, a believer with a believer, that at some point I do not have to forgive. It is impossible. We agree on that, it is impossible to live this life and not have to go through that experience of forgiving.

In order for all these relationships to survive, we have to forgive, because we are all sinners. From our childhood we begin to demonstrate those behaviors that we are sinners. A story that my husband and his family have told me, I have heard it several times, it is with respect to this that even as children we are already showing that we are sinners. Roberto, my husband, and his brother Virgilio, they are only 10 months apart and that is why they had a continuous fight, you took that from me, look what he did, look what he said to me, a slap because you hit me first, I have the right to give you

We see all these types of situations in our homes continuously, and now Toñita, my mother-in-law, is fed up with the matter, it was continuously the same thing, up to here it came. He tried to have a conversation with… You, Roberto forgive your brother, forgive Roberto, but nothing, they kept fighting. She said, okay, you don't want to forgive and you want to continue, now you're going to see what I'm going to do. And what he did was he put them both on a bed covered with a mosquito net and left them there for hours and hours and hours. At first not much happened, each one annoyed with the other, then they started playing and when the punishment was over, they were the best friends in the world. Oh, manito, take my cart, use it first. And it was a friendship and a love… that is the mosquito net therapy, in case you want to repeat it at home.

To this day they are good friends. There are therapies that we receive in childhood, the wisdom of our parents that help us precisely to grow in what forgiveness is and to develop skills in that area. They are learned things, they do not come naturally to us. Everyone who knows that someone has offended them, the first thing one wants to get out is the little monster that we all have inside. We have to hold him and say, no, old woman, old man, you already died, now I know that I can forgive because Christ forgave us.

And we know that forgiveness is entering the scriptures. Not only in the New Testament but since the Old Testament there are many mentions about God's forgiveness but also about exercising justice by forgiving one another. So it is a central concept, there is no way that we study the word and that we do not see very clearly the concept of forgiveness.

And what is the foundation of us forgiving? Obviously, the foundation is for us to be able to forgive, we have to recognize that we were first forgiven. Why were we forgiven? Christ on the cross paid the price for us to have eternal salvation that with our repentance and receive God's forgiveness. It is wonderful. In the first moment that you say, "Yes, Lord, come into my life, be the owner of my heart," we go in repentance before God, in that very moment our sins are forgiven. That is wonderful. It's wonderful after one has that experience how one sees the world differently. There are still struggles, there are plenty of challenges, many things to fix, and they will continue until the Lord takes us out of this world, but it is different because we have experienced how delicious God's forgiveness is.

And when he offered his life on the cross, what did we receive? We receive forgiveness of our sins, he freed us from the slavery of sin. In a sense he paid the price with his own body, shedding his blood so that we would be free. And by that act of us saying, “Yes, Lord, be master of my life,” then we are also called children of the Father. We are part of the family of God.

So many miracles happen just because of us receiving what Christ already paid on the cross for us. So, if we have received that, obviously we also have to do it towards others. In First John 1:19 the offer that God gives about how available his forgiveness is is very clear. Says:

“…If we confess our sins – notice what he says – he is faithful and just to forgive our sins…”

Sure, right? We confess, he forgives.

"... and cleanse us from all evil..."

The Lord wants to do a complete job in each one of us. Our role is to invite him and give him permission, because he respects us so much that if we say, “No, Lord, I don't want you to cleanse me of my sin,” he won't do it. We are not puppets in God's hands. He respects us and that is why it is that invitation. If you confess your sins I am faithful to forgive your sins and cleanse you from all evil.

And we are forgiven not because we deserve it, because we don't. We are all sinners and what would touch us for our sin is death, spiritual death, but nevertheless, because we do not deserve it or because we do good works, but we are forgiven, why? By the grace and mercy that God gives to each one of us. I believe that there is nothing in the world, no good received that we can mention, that is bigger and more important and more influential in our lives than being forgiven by God.

Knowing that the God of the universe who knows everything about us, knows us inside and out, knows our word, even before we say it, knows where we came from, knows where we are going, may he give us his forgiveness. I think that one of the key things in our Christian life is to always meditate on that, to recognize where the Lord took us from, because sometimes when we walk in the Lord for many years we forget where the Lord took us from and then we treat others As if with a certain contempt, ah, look where you are, when perhaps we were in an even worse condition. We never forget where God took us from and the grace that he poured out for his mercy.

He does not want any of us to be lost. The prophet Micah once said that “God like you, who forgives wrongdoing and forgets the sin of the remnant of his inheritance, did not retain his anger forever because he delights in mercy. He will have mercy on us again, he will bury our iniquities and cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.”

What a beautiful image. One thinks that those sins do not just float around but that the Lord once we repent, we go before his presence, he gives a pardon at that very moment and throws them into the depths of the sea. Someone once said that the Lord throws our sins to the bottom of the sea and then puts a sign over them that says, "No fishing." Once we are forgiven, let's leave that there, let's not flirt with that sin again, nor take the burden again, because that happens to many of us. The Lord gives us his forgiveness so liberally and we go back again and pick up the load as if the Lord had not done his work in us.

That is the concept that people talk about forgiving ourselves. Sometimes the sense of guilt is so great that we let go and grab them again, when the Lord already threw it to the bottom of the sea and placed that sign that says, "No fishing."

Now, that does not mean that sometimes we have to solve certain things, restore certain mistakes that we have committed. That is, it does not mean that he forgave himself and everything returned to normal. It is not like this. In reality that is not so. But it does mean that I can, with complete confidence, rejoice in the forgiveness that God has given me and not sin again, as Jesus said so many times when he spoke in his earthly ministry.

Psalm 32 talks about the joy of forgiveness and says like this:

“…Blessed are those whose transgressions are forgiven and their sins covered. Said he whose sin the Lord will not take into account.”

The forgiveness of sins brings joy. We are more than happy to be able to savor God's forgiveness. Forgiveness transforms the mind, transforms the heart, the body, the spirit, everything, it covers everything. It is something wonderful. God's forgiveness is something supernatural. And it is definitive, as I said, the Lord does not get up one day, "Ah, I forgave you yesterday but today I changed my mind, today I will put the burden on you again." He is not like that. Once we sincerely confess our sins, the Lord gives his forgiveness at that very moment and now, it is forever, it is definitive.

In the ministry of Christ we see that he not only healed diseases, but accompanied the healing of the body with the healing of the soul. And obviously it began with the forgiveness of sins. An example of this is, if you remember when these friends take their paralyzed friend, they want to enter where Jesus is preaching to the people, he was inside a house, and there was a crowd, they couldn't get to the Lord, so it occurred to them, let's go to remove the roof, we make a hole and lower our friend down there so that he approaches Jesus. And one would think that the first thing that Jesus is going to do is heal his body, but notice that the first words that Jesus speaks to this man, he says, “Son, your sins are forgiven you.”

Because what is the use of receiving healing of the body if you also do not receive the forgiveness of your sins. It is much more important, it is essential, it is for eternity. This body stays here, the forgiveness of our sins takes us for all eternity with the Lord.

And at the end of his earthly ministry we see Jesus at a time when he was being scourged, taunted, mocked, Jesus' words are, "Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing." That is our God, a forgiving God, we just have to have a sincerely repentant heart and the Lord is immediately ready to forgive us.

And we know that with every privilege, we have the privilege of being forgiven by the Lord, but with every privilege comes responsibility. And what is the responsibility we have for having been and for continuing to be forgiven until the last day of our lives? It is forgiving those who have already offended us and continuing to forgive those who offend us in the future. In other words, we are forgiven in order to forgive. One thing goes with the other.

The famous writer C.S. Lewis wrote, “To be a Christian means that you forgive the inexcusable in others because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.” Forgiven to forgive.

God commands us in his word to forgive, it is not a suggestion, it is a mandate. Forgive those who have offended us. If you remember the prayer of the Our Father, the model prayer of the Our Father, it says in one of its verses, in Matthew 6:12,

“…Forgive us our debts as we also forgive our debtors…”

And he does not stop there with regard to forgiveness, a few verses later he says a few words that remove all doubt that forgiveness is a command, he says in Matthew 6:14,

“…Because if you forgive others their trespasses, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you…”

Notice a 'but', it is a 'but' of those giants of the scriptures, but... if you do not forgive others their offenses, your Father will not forgive you yours either. It can't be clearer. We have to forgive. We have received an undeserved gift from God and our obligation in obedience to the Lord is that we also forgive others.

But oh, oh, oh, how difficult it is to forgive. Is it just me or you too sometimes have difficulty forgiving. I was recently talking to a Dominican brother about this forgiveness thing and he said, "Ah, but it's easy." "No." Truly it is not easy, it is not easy to forgive, especially when it comes to serious offenses. There are little things that we ignore and do not take into account, but there are offenses that oh, oh, oh, how difficult it is to accept this mandate to forgive.

But it is not because it is easy, we do it because God commands it and we have to do it. God simply likes our obedience. And whether we like it or not, our ideas about forgiveness are going to be influenced by our own humanity, by who we are, why we are sinners, and also by our life experiences. That also influences how easy or how difficult or willing we are to obey. Many times we say phrases with a very arrogant tone, as there are things that cannot be forgiven. I forgive but not forget. Big pardon, right? Or, worst of all, the one who does it to me pays for it.

Many times we say that even knowing the Lord, even having experienced the joy of his forgiveness, so we do. And why is it so difficult? Why is it so difficult to forgive others when they offend us? And I tell you that not as someone who has reached a degree of perfection in that. I recently had an experience that let me see, wow! There is still a lot to grow, Meche. And the key is to review those concepts to know. I did the right thing in that situation but how difficult it was for me. My pride rose, and what does this person think after I did ta, ta, for her and now she does this to me and that kind of thing that we all do and feel. It is our humanity, our egoism, but then the spirit of God has to come to us right away to tell us, “Aha, okay! But… are you going to obey or are you not going to obey?” We have nothing else but to obey the Lord in humility, to humble ourselves to him and obey.

So first we have to recognize that it is difficult for us to forgive because we are sinners, because there is pride and selfishness within us and sometimes we decide not to give freely what we have received freely. And then we withhold the forgiveness that we can give in obedience to the Lord, we say, "No, I'm not going to do it." Many of us say, “No, I don't feel forgiving, and that's why I'm not going to forgive,” as if this were a matter of emotions. Forgiveness is not an emotional issue, it is ultimately a spiritual issue with spiritual consequences. That's the reality, it's not just… emotions are involved but it's not just an emotional issue.

There are those who do not forgive because they think that by doing so they are making themselves vulnerable to being offended again or that the other person considers them weak. There, again our present pride. There are others who have the myth that they believe that in order to forgive, the offender has to come down on their knees and ask them, "Please forgive me." It is not like that, many times the one who has offended us will not come to us to ask for forgiveness. The truth is that to forgive, do you know how many people it takes? It is one nothing more. Well there are two, you and the Lord are needed, the help of the Lord, but in reality it is one.

Now, we confuse forgiveness with reconciliation many times. To forgive one is needed, for there to be reconciliation two people are needed. And the ideal is that in most situations there is reconciliation, but many times it is not possible for many reasons. Sometimes it is not even recommended that there be reconciliation because of issues that could put the person in danger, it can be death risk due to murder, danger because there has been sexual abuse or whatever, but it is not always possible and sometimes it is not even recommended. even seek reconciliation, but that cancels the fact that as a person I have to forgive the other. There are situations that are not convenient but when possible, which is the majority of situations, we must seek reconciliation.

Many years ago, a young adult came to seek advice from me about the difficulty of forgiving a family member and she confessed that she was stagnant, felt that she could not grow spiritually and was struggling because when she was a child a relative taking advantage of the trust that was he had hit her within the family, touched her inappropriately, sexually on repeated occasions. So all these years, we're talking about 25 years since this had happened, but still not being able to forgive this man tortured her. She told me that just thinking that when she forgave him she would have to resume a normal personal relationship with him, that just thinking about it made her sick. There was definitely emotional torture from this fact in her.

And so what she did was she chose to harden her heart but that affected her in many areas, she was not free in the Lord. The freedom that God wanted her to have she was not having because of her desire not to forgive this person. When I explained to him the difference between forgiving and reconciliation it was as if a weight fell off his shoulders because he recognized that his duty, his responsibility before God was only to forgive this man. As soon as she understood that difference, I think it is very important that we understand that, we cannot always achieve reconciliation, sometimes the person has even died, how are we going to have reconciliation with someone who is no longer there. There are situations where you can't. But as much as possible we are going to look for it.

The point is that this young woman took the first step, she forgave, right there she prayed with me, supporting her in prayer and she was able to forgive this man. And that burden fell off him and he was free in that specific aspect of his relationship with God. Years later God gave him the opportunity to see this man at a family reunion and he was able to say hello very briefly and that's it. But what difference does forgiveness make. She chose to forgive and the Lord honored her forgiveness and took away the burden that she had been carrying for so long.

When we withhold forgiveness, when we firmly decide not to give it, we open ourselves up to bitterness, to resentment, and sometimes that resentment is like a snowball going down a mountain, picking up more and more snow until it becomes a snowball. Something very big. This often happens to us, that is why it is so important... this is a matter of daily hygiene, forgiving those who have offended us and seeking reconciliation whenever possible so as not to carry bitterness.

Look, bitterness makes you more wrinkles. Who wants more wrinkles? Nobody. Do not do that, leave your burden, leave it to the Lord, do not carry the bitterness when the Lord already paid that price on the cross.

I have known people who have assumed bitterness as almost part of their identity, so that this non-forgiveness is so much a part of them that it impacts all areas of their lives. I have seen sick people because they have not forgiven. Who wants something like that? Who wants all your emotional growth, your spiritual growth, suffering, having nightmares, not sleeping, wrinkling before your time, all those things, who wants that? we are going to do hygiene every day in that sense, we are going to leave all those things and truly use the forgiveness that we have to give to others in obedience.

Someone said that not forgiving is like taking a poison and expecting someone else to die. Because? Because that's what it's like not to forgive. It poisons you inside. Don't drink or want someone to die from the poison and don't drink it yourself either. It's ridiculous.

I have seen people who still refuse to forgive those who have died and who have hurt them, and are reviving... I once knew a person who 30 years later still reliving every day the evil of a person who had already died 30 years ago. years I was doing. How terrible! What a waste of energy! What a loss of growth to do something like that! May the Lord save us from that. We have to remember why we forgive, because we want to be obedient. Why can we do it? Because Christ already paid the price on the cross so that we can do it.

Again, it's not easy, I'm not saying it's easy, but once we do it it's wonderful what we can see. Many of us, I admit, have received wounds and shortcomings in our childhood that have created a rejection complex in us, and what happens when we have a rejection complex? It is that for us to protect ourselves we have created some walls around us and then we begin to be very sensitive. It may be that someone makes a comment, behaves in a way that we think... maybe they are innocent, but the person with the rejection complex has the idea that it is because they want to hurt them.

That is a very important healing area and it is very easy to recognize people who have a rejection complex because very small things escalate very quickly and they walk with resentment, it is very sad and they are the type of people that when they are in a group sometimes They have a problem with everyone. It is an area of healing, in the name of Christ, even those experiences that formed us like this, in the name of Christ, heal and move forward so that they do not harm us.

And there are people who have just had terrible experiences, we recognize that, but sometimes they are experiences that we open a very large door for Satan so that he can do more and more destruction. Do you think that Satan wants you to forgive those who have offended you? Does that please him? No, quite the opposite. What does he do? It whispers in our minds, ah, but you forgave him but he didn't deserve it. And it is true, maybe he did not deserve it but we do not do it because the person deserves it, we do it because we are being obedient to the Lord, we do it because we have received that grace from God and it is up to us to forgive others. It's not a matter of anyone deserving it or not.

A long time ago, through my work, I met a young woman who had some horrible experiences in life. She came from Salvador and had gone through the civil war that took place in El Salvador, that of the guerrillas, and one of the terrible experiences that this young woman witnessed was seeing someone kill her own father at her feet, first torturing him and killing him. . We are talking about a young girl. In addition, at home, her mother physically abused her with blows, words, so she came from a tragic background and was very sensitive to rejection.

She emigrated to Boston, got married here, had 4 children, when I met her they were little, and when I met her she and her husband yelled at each other and insulted each other daily. It was not a matter of one day yes and another, it was daily. That was the bread of that house. She confessed to me that she could not forgive him for things that he had done previously in their marriage and that his way of getting revenge, because not all of us take revenge by killing someone or hitting them, we take revenge sometimes in very subtle ways that you fool yourself into thinking you're not doing revenge, but you know what I'm talking about right?

The thing is, he told me that his way of getting revenge was to call him 'crazy' among many other things that I can't say here, but they were insults, I didn't know. He spoke to her and she rolled her eyes and… ignored him. I yelled at him daily and didn't cook for him, various things. I mean, she cut off this man's water and electricity. Once we had a visit I felt it was time to address what she had already told me she was doing and I talked to her about the restorative power of God's forgiveness toward her and the restorative power of forgiveness from one another.

And I remember his look of disbelief, what? I gave her a suggestion of things she could do to heal her marriage. I spoke to him about forgiveness and I saw his look of disbelief when I told him the following, "Look, you do these 3 things and I assure you that your life is going to change, life in your home is going to change." I began by asking him, the first thing you have to do is ask the Lord for the grace to forgive your husband. Then I told her, bite your tongue and overcome the temptation to return your husband's yelling and insults. And third, cook every day and eat together as a family. I remember his look of…uh-huh, yeah. "Do you think I can do that?" I assured him, “Yes, you can do that. I know that you are a spiritual woman, I know that God has the power to help you do those things.”

The thing is, she obeyed. He followed the recipe to the letter. And in that process, even though she had not yet seen fruit, her faith in God as a forgiving God began to grow and the hope that her home could change began to grow. And with just two weeks of her following this recipe, she began to see changes. A few months later, she managed to get her husband to let her go to church once a week, because he had control of everything in the house. He told her, “You can go to church once a week if you cook first.” But her desire to grow in the Lord was so great that she said, well, this is a small price to pay, I can pay it, because she had seen that the Lord had begun to change her home.

A year later, her husband became a disciple of Christ as well, and not only did she go to church with the children, but he too. And to this day they remain committed to a church in Boston, and not only that but... when God enters a family and begins to do things, he often does not limit himself to the thing that we initially asked for, this was an extremely poor. I know that many times there was nothing in the fridge, there was no money to buy anything, barely enough to pay the rent, which was still low. And at the age of 4 they were able to buy their own house. A wonderful thing, it is one of the clearest examples that I have seen in my life of how God moves in a family when a person in that family takes the challenge to forgive. It is something wonderful.

Just as it happened in the life of this woman, I know that it can happen in the lives of many more. One of the clearest examples in scripture of forgiveness is the life of Joseph, found in Genesis. We can't see it directly from the script very much because his story covers from chapter 37 to 48, it's pretty big, so what I want to do right now is give him a very quick rundown of his story and then get into the forgiveness aspect.

We know that Joseph was one of the two youngest sons of Jacob, from the patriarch Jacob. His mother, Raquel, who was his father's favorite, had died giving birth to Benjamin, his youngest son who was the only younger brother that Joseph had. We know that he had 10 older brothers and that Jacob always showed a preference for Joseph.

And obviously when it happens in a family, when a mother, a father, shows a preference for a child, it is already creating a toxic situation in the family and obviously what happened? The older brothers began to despise José out of jealousy and envy. On one occasion he gave his son as a gift to further show his preference, a very beautiful tunic that he was in charge of wearing frequently and that the little monster obviously took out for his brothers every time they saw it.

The thing is that one day Jacob sends Joseph to visit to find out about the older brothers who were shepherding far away, he sends him, "Go see how your brothers are doing." And when they saw him coming from afar, they recognized him by the tunic he was wearing – one says, why would a person wear such a beautiful tunic for a long trip, it would get dirty. José perhaps had his pride problem, we do not doubt that. The thing is that his brothers start talking to each other and decide to kill him. But at the moment of truth one of them intervenes and says, "Let's not kill him, it's our own blood anyway, he's our brother, let's not kill him." And a caravan of merchants passed by, so they sold Joseph as a slave to those merchants.

And we know from history that God protected Joseph, he did not die anonymously as a slave in Egypt, but rather at the age of 30 divine providence took him to the presence of Pharaoh where he interpreted two dreams for him and from that moment he was appointed second in command in Egypt. A fascinating story and among its functions was to store food in Egypt for 7 years of abundance and then know how to distribute it for the next 7 years where there would be a shortage.

And the story becomes very interesting when one day, like any other, José is carrying out his duties as second in command and sees his brothers enter, all except his younger brother Benjamin. Obviously, what happens when your memories immediately are that the last time you saw those people who are in your presence were moments of betrayal where your own brothers declared words of death to you and tried to kill you and sold you as a slave? What a terrible scene, right? You think that this was already part of your past and at the moment you find yourself again with the people who have betrayed you in such a terrible way.

It was an ordinary day and what happened is that José did not immediately identify himself to them, but later he did, after 3 visits from his brothers he did. And you can imagine the terror these men must have felt when they realized that this man of great power in Egypt who stood before them was the very one whom they had tortured and tried to kill many years before. And they thought… obviously, what do you think if you have done someone wrong? You think revenge is coming. But we know from history that this story did not end in revenge and death, but in forgiveness and reconciliation.

And we can infer that Joseph's journey of forgiveness did not begin when his brothers came to where he was. I believe that many years before he had begun to make decisions that had allowed him to live a healthy life emotionally and spiritually. Something that makes me think that this is the case is the name he gave his two children. He gave his firstborn the name Manasseh, which means God made me forget all my work or all my trials, all my sorrows and all my father's house. And he called his second son Ephraim, which means God made me fruitful in the land of my affliction.

He had already processed part of it. There is a lot of wisdom summed up in those names. They say that José did not allow it, he was determined to prevent his past from determining his future. He said, I have passed many tests, I have been betrayed by my own family, I had to leave my home and my relatives. Even in Egypt he suffered a lot, he was also betrayed in Egypt, but I am not going to allow that to prevent the future of blessing that God has for me, which is something that we all have to do. We cannot allow the past that we have lived, the experiences that we have lived to set the tone for what we are going to do today.

And another thing that he did was that he decided to restore his life and he decided to bear fruit where God had it at that moment. Not allowing the past to determine what his behavior was at that moment. And one thing that we see through the story time after time is him thanking God, recognizing that the gifts he had, for example, that gift of interpreting dreams, did not come from him, it was not his own gift. God had given it to him. And in the passage, this humble acknowledgment that God had given him what he had is repeated several times.

And the fact that he had a heart that was grateful to God helped him fight the bitterness, which very understandably he may have had because of the situation he had experienced. He acted justly within the framework of his humanity, he acted justly. And he was able to forgive, not because he was a spiritual giant, as none of us here is a spiritual giant, but he knew God and was able to say, within that situation, I am going to forgive because he recognized the dangers of not forgiving.

An example that sometimes occurs in families is the example of adultery. And I give this example because many times forgiveness is a process. Forgiveness is not linear, like okay, now I do this and this happens and this happens. Many times not. sometimes the wounds we have suffered, the betrayals we have suffered are so strong that it is a process that takes time, even when we have sincerely forgiven.

And the example of adultery comes to mind because once a person told me, "I think my wife has not forgiven me because she doesn't behave the same as before." I knew that this woman had sincerely forgiven, but what happens many times? That forgiveness happens but then you have to earn trust. We have to go little by little rebuilding the relationship. And I tell them because I know that there are many people who think, okay, I have already forgiven and things have to go back to the way they were before. Or forgive me and everything stays the same. No, sometimes there are offenses so serious that things can't stay the same. Spiritually, they are the same because we have already taken a step of faith by forgiving, but in the sense of humanity we have to start again to build, to rebuild, to heal, to restore.

It is good to understand that this is a process and it is good that both understand it, both the one who offends and the one who is offended. Part of that happened with José. I think he did not identify with them at first, first because he wanted to try them, he wanted to know if they had changed, and also because the emotions he felt were so strong, there was so much anguish in his soul when facing his memories again. what those men had done against him and all the loss that followed. He did it to test them and to give himself time to process his emotions.

However, one sees in one of the brothers' comments, 22 years had passed and they still had a guilty conscience clear in their minds. Once they said, "Truly we have sinned against our brother." And they didn't know that José understood what they were saying to each other, because José hadn't identified himself yet, and he was speaking through an interpreter. “Truly we have sinned against our brother because we saw the anguish of his soul when he begged us and we did not listen to him. That is why this anguish has come upon us.”

And Joseph had mercy on them. Not only in obedience to God but because he could understand their need and he wanted reconciliation. Once later he says, “Look, I'm Jose, I'm his brother Jose,” and that's obviously where the terror enters them. But he is not ignorant of what his brothers have done to him, but nevertheless he gives them a word of comfort. Look what he says to his brothers in Genesis 45:

“….But now please don't grieve anymore or reproach yourselves for having sold me, because in reality it was God who sent me ahead of you to save lives. For 2 years the region has been suffering from hunger and there are still 5 more years to go in which there will be no planting or harvesting, that is why God sent me ahead of you to save your lives in an extraordinary way and in this way assure you offspring on earth…”

Jose was a man of faith. By speaking thus to his brothers he comforts them. That brings comfort. And it makes them see that God redeemed suffering and God can do it with all our life situations. That points us to Romans 8:28, well-known words where it says,

"... And we know that those who love God all things work together for good, this is to those who are called according to his purpose..."

Those words fill us with hope because they remind us that when our walk with God is sincere, he works in the midst of all circumstances. For God there is no waste in our life, no matter what we have been through. So he made that decision, he made the decision not to withhold forgiveness.

Can you imagine what would have happened if José had not forgiven? The picture would have been totally different. If he had used revenge and had done the famous eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, you did such a thing to me, I'll do the same to you. But Joseph did not choose that, he chose to forgive and reconcile. He chose to forgive and bear fruit within his affliction, to reject the temptation to fall into bitterness, because we all have that temptation. Give up revenge and as I told you before, not all revenge is death, there are revenges that are very subtle. Exercising grace and mercy, he understood the need of his brothers and because of this, because he was able to do all this, he reaped many fruits.

And one of the fruits was reconciling with his brothers, being able to share with his beloved father, whom he had not seen for 22 years, and the last 17 years of Jacob's life, he was able to share with him, he was able to have the privilege of his father knew and blessed his own children. That could not have happened if he had not forgiven his brothers. He was an instrument of salvation for his whole house. It was a channel of blessing for future generations.

One does not know... the forgiveness that you give today can be the key to the future of your family. It may be the key to saving a marriage, it may be the key to fruitful future lives for your children, it may be the key to unity in your family. Sometimes it takes just one person in a family to be obedient, forgiving, for God to heal a whole multitude as we see in the life of Joseph.

Again, this is a mandate, we have to do it because God sends it to us, it is necessary. By forgiving Joseph he was able to continue the fulfillment of the promises that God had made to the previous patriarchs, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He put to follow the blessing that God already had... he was walking in promise, he by his yes to the forgiveness of his brothers, by seeking that reconciliation he could see that fruit.

Can you imagine what your sincere forgiveness can do in the hands of God? Lots of wonderful things. Perhaps one of you is here today and someone has offended you and you have not been able to forgive him or her. I tell you on this day that God knows your heart, he knows that it is difficult, he understands, he knows your condition, he is no stranger to it, he knows the struggles that exist within your heart, he knows the offense that they have done, but precisely because he knows he has also given in his word everything you need so that you can forgive. If you have been born again you know that your sins have been forgiven. Do you remember that at the beginning I said that we are forgiven in order to forgive. And you know that at all times you have access to Heavenly Father.

Hebrews 4:16 says it like this: “…Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with confidence to obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need…”

I tell you, therefore approach the throne of grace confidently to reach mercy and find grace for timely relief. Timely relief is… God already knows what you need and already on the throne of grace he has prepared a little package that has your name on it so that you simply claim it and receive it. Many of us are going to go to the Lord to ask for forgiveness for our sins, but let us not only do that, let us also go to the throne of the Lord, confidently enter His presence to ask Him for the grace we need for us to forgive others.

Grace is there, it is ready, the little package is already with your name, the Lord knows all things, he knows what you need today, he knows what you are going to need tomorrow, but it is already there waiting for you. The only thing you have to do is appropriate that grace of the Lord. He has already given the word, and Christ gave his life on the cross so that all our ailments may be healed.

So I invite you on this day to make the decision to forgive, and don't wait... sometimes people talk about... forgiving is something linear, automatic, everything has already been resolved. No. Many times the first thing is to make the decision to forgive and the rest is often left to the Lord. Sometimes emotions are not aligned with the forgiveness that we want to give and need to give. It happens to us many times, but by faith we forgive and in faith we wait for God to give us that opportune extra help, that our emotions change and get in tune with that forgiveness so that there can be reconciliation in all the relationships in which we are. .

God is wonderful. God never falls short. Everything you sincerely ask of the Lord he gives you. I know from my own experience. In my life, things have happened to me that I thought would never happen to me and that have confronted me with the reality of whether I forgive or not. But when we are in the Lord there is no other option, my dear sister and my dear brother, no matter what has happened, the only option that we have to do is in humility, obey the Lord and go to his throne of grace, take the grace to forgive and move on on our way.

God will bless you for that. The Lord once told me clearly, because you acted justly, because I forgave in a situation, I will bless you. And so it has been, it has blessed me greatly. And likewise it will bless you if you do that.

Lord, thank you for your word, God. Thank you for the forgiveness of our sins oh God. Lord, in humility we stand before your presence, Lord, I represent my brothers here, Lord, to ask you for the grace we need for this day to forgive everyone who has offended us, Lord. Lord, we want to be humble before you, we want to be obedient. Help us Lord, take us by the hand, sometimes on that difficult path and give us the grace to do what you have commanded us to do, Lord. Thanks, Dad. Amen.