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In our fallen world, retaliation is all too often people’s response whenever they have been wronged. Christians, however, have God’s call to be different from this standard worldly response by practising forgiveness with a forgiving spirit. This is, of course, not an easy call for us as Christians to obey. We are not only to forgive all those who have wronged us, but also to pray for and minister to them.
Practising forgiveness is really the best way of restoring a broken, strained or spoiled relationship. This practice recognises the wrongdoing which hurt the relationship and seeks to forgive it as well as restore relationship with the wrongdoer. Forgiveness does not pretend that the wrongdoing did not happen.
As wrongdoers ourselves in God’s sight, we fall under His divine judgment. We cannot escape this judgment unless we have His forgiveness which He alone can grant. When He gives it to us, it is through His grace and mercy that He is exercising towards us even though we do not deserve it at all (Titus 3:4-7). Once we have been forgiven by God, we have the responsibility to forgive others who wrong us. We should not withhold forgiveness from them. Realizing how much God has forgiven us, we should have a free and generous spirit of forgiveness.
As Christians when we do not forgive others, we place ourselves above God’s law of love. In Matthew 18:21-35, our Lord Jesus teaches that we should not even try to keep a record of the number of times we have forgiven a person. We must always be willing to forgive him, no matter the number of times he asks for forgiveness. We also have the responsibility to repent and apologise sincerely when we wrong another person. In humility, we help others who need to forgive by apologising genuinely. They may not be moved to respond with their forgiveness, but this is the right thing for us to do in obedience to God’s Word.

“Some will hate you, some will love you;
Some will flatter, some will slight;
Cease from man, and look above you,
Trust in God and do the right.” – Macleod
“Forgive, and you will be forgiven” – Luke 6:37