Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

• Matthew 6:15

Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?”
Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.

• Matthew 18:21-22

And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

• Romans 5:5

“ ‘You mentioned Ravensbruck in your talk,’ he was saying. I was a guard there.’ No, he did not remember me. ‘
“ ‘But since that time,’ he went on, ‘I have become a Christian.  I know that God has forgiven me for the cruel things I did there, but I would like to hear it from your lips as well. Fraulein, -again the hand came out—’will you forgive me?’
“And I stood there—I whose sins had again and again to be forgiven—and could not forgive. Betsie had died in that place-could he erase her slow terrible death simply for the asking?
“It could not have been many seconds that he stood there-hand held out—but to me it seemed hours as I wrestled with the most difficult thing I had ever had to do.
“For I had to do it—I knew that. The message that God has a prior condition: that we forgive those who have injured us. ‘If you do not forgive men their trespasses,’ Iesus says, ‘neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses.’
“I knew it not only.as a commandment of God, but as a daily experience. Since the end of the war I had had a home in Holland  for victims of Nazi brutality. Those who were able to forgive their former enemies were able also to return to the outside world and rebuild their lives, no matter what the physical scars. Those that nursed their bitterness remained invalids. It was as simple and as horrible as that.
“And still I stood there with the coldness clutching my heart. But forgiveness is not an emotion I knew that too. Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart ‘Jesus help me!’ I prayed silently‘ ‘I can lift my hand. I can do that much. You supply the  feeling.’
“And so woodenly, mechanically, I thrust my all Into the one stretched out to me. And as I did, an incredible thing took place. The current started in my shoulder, raced down my arm, sprang into our joined hands. And then this healing warmth seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes.
“ ‘I forgive you, brother!’ I cried. ‘With all my heart.’
“For a long moment we grasped each other’s hands, the former guard and the former prisoner.  I had never known God’s love as intensely as I did then. But even so, I realized it was not my love.  I had tried, and did not have the power. It was the power of the Holy Spirit as recorded in Romans 5:5 ‘ … because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which ls given unto us. ‘
“(GUIDEPOSTS MAGAZINE copyright 1972)”

• Corrie ten Boom, Tramp for the Lord

I skipped a lot to get to this point.  When Tante Corrie was in America, she felt the urge to return to Europe.  She told God she was willing to go anywhere in the world except Germany, but that is where she went.  Then there was a chapter, a flashback to a woman in the concentration camp who was a piano virtuoso.  She told Corrie ten Boom that she had lost everything, but Tante Corrie told her that her greatest gift was her skill and the songs stored in her heart.

This story, with the quote above, rips at my heart each time I read it.  Are there people who I need to forgive?  I can mentally go through the process, but if I saw them in person, I would be like Corrie ten Boom.  “Lord, help me.  I will extend the hand.  You supply the feeling.”

It is not that these people are so horrible that not even a worm would like them.  They just continue to spread their poison on those that I love.  Maybe it is a deadly poison, and in some cases, it is.  But sometimes it is just an irritation that will not go away.

And all of this is something that I can write, but I never survived a concentration camp where my own sister died in my arms.

Sorry, I do not have to read this story.  Just thinking of it drives me to tears.

But it all comes down to us forgiving, not willing to forgive, forgiving.  But take heart, if Jesus is within us, when the time comes, He will provide the power to forgive. We must be a willing participant.

Lord, strengthen me.  Help me to forgive.  Give me the strength to face those who have hurt me and especially those who have hurt those that I love.  Give me a swift kick so that I extend my hand, and then You can do the rest.  In Your name I pray.  Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.