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See also Guilt
See also Repentance
Clean Illustration
An Excellent Equation
1 CROSS + 3 NAILS = 4 GIVEN
Anonymous poem.
If our greatest need had been information, God would of sent us an educator.
If our greatest need had been money, God would of sent us an economist.
If our greatest need had been technology, God would of sent us a scientist.
If our greatest need had been pleasure, God would of sent us an entertainer.
But our greatest need was forgiveness, so God sent us a saviour.
Mark Twain
"Forgiveness is the fragrance that the flower leaves on the heel of the one who crushed it."
"Though God will forgive Sin repented of, He will not condone Sin persisted in."
Anon
"Forgiveness is the most healing force in the world."
Pastor Garry Olsen (USA)
"If you can be battered without being bitter you will be better."
Carnegie Simpson
"Forgiveness is to man the plainest of duties; to God it is the profoundest of problems."
Thomas Watson
"Daily bread may satisfy the appetite, but forgiveness of sin satisfies the conscience."
"When God pardons, there is nothing he will stick at to do for the soul; he will adopt, sanctify, crown."
"Forgiveness is passing by sin, wiping off the score and giving us a discharge."
"Forgiveness is a golden thread spun out of the bowels of free grace."
"When we open our sins to God by confessing, he opens his mercy to us by forgiving."
Dr. Martin Lloyd Jones
"A Christian is a person who is amazed at the fact that he is forgiven."
George Herbert
"He who cannot forgive breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass."
William A. Ward
Forgiveness is a funny thing; it warms the heart and cools the sting.
Button in a tourist shop: to err is human, to forgive is out of the question
C.H.Spurgeon
"Alchemists of old sought after a universal solvent. The blood of Jesus is that."
Unknown
A couple married for 15 years began having more than usual disagreements. They wanted to make their marriage work and agreed on an idea the wife had. For one month they planned to drop a slip in a "Fault" box. The boxes would provide a place to let the other know about daily irritations. The wife was diligent in her efforts and approach: "leaving the jelly top off the jar," "wet towels on the shower floor," "dirty socks not in hamper," on and on until the end of the month. After dinner, at the end of the month, they exchanged boxes. The husband reflected on what he had done wrong. Then the wife opened her box and began reading. They were all the same, the message on each slip was, "I love you!"
Karl Menninger, the famed psychiatrist, once said that if he could convince the patients in psychiatric hospitals that their sins were forgiven, 75 percent of them could walk out the next day!
H.A. Ironside
On the Lord's day a group of missionaries and believers in New Guinea were gathered together to observe the Lord's Supper. After one young man sat down, a missionary recognised that a sudden tremor had passed through the young man's body that indicated he was under a great nervous strain. Then in a moment all was quiet again. The missionary whispered, "What was it that troubled you?" "Ah," he said, "But the man who just came in killed and ate the body of my father. And now he has come in to remember the Lord with us. At first I didn't know whether I could endure it. But it is all right now. He is washed in the same precious blood." And so together they had Communion. It is a marvellous thing, the work of the Holy Spirit of God. Does the world know anything of this?
Anon
Not long before she died in 1988, in a moment of surprising candour in television, Marghanita Laski, one of our best-known secular humanists and novelists, said, "What I envy most about you Christians is your forgiveness; I have nobody to forgive me."
Steve Peat
Surely no condemned criminal would refuse to accept a pardon! It only happened once. A criminal condemned to death in the U.S.A. was brought a pardon by the warden but refused to accept it. Confused he consulted the authorities and the High court ruled that a pardon must be received to be operational. Still the condemned man refused to accept the pardon offered and died! What a fool!
Bits & Pieces, October 15, 1992, Page 13
There's a Spanish story of a father and son who had become estranged. The son ran away, and the father set off to find him. He searched for months to no avail. Finally, in a last desperate effort to find him, the father put an ad in a Madrid newspaper. The ad read: Dear Paco, meet me in front of this newspaper office at noon on Saturday. All is forgiven. I love you. Your Father. On Saturday 800 Pacos showed up, looking for forgiveness and love from their fathers.
Don Ratzlaff
In "The Christian Leader," Don Ratzlaff retells a story Vernon Grounds came across in Ernest Gordon's Miracle on the River Kwai. The Scottish soldiers, forced by their Japanese captors to labour on a jungle railroad, had degenerated to barbarous behaviour, but one afternoon something happened. A shovel was missing. The officer in charge became enraged. He demanded that the missing shovel be produced, or else. When nobody in the squadron budged, the officer got his gun and threatened to kill them all on the spot . . . It was obvious the officer meant what he had said. Then, finally, one man stepped forward. The officer put away his gun, picked up a shovel, and beat the man to death. When it was over, the survivors picked up the bloody corpse and carried it with them to the second tool check. This time, no shovel was missing. Indeed, there had been a miscount at the first check point. The word spread like wildfire through the whole camp. An innocent man had been willing to die to save the others! . . . The incident had a profound effect. . . The men began to treat each other like brothers. When the victorious Allies swept in, the survivors, human skeletons, lined up in front of their captors (and instead of attacking their captors) insisted: "No more hatred. No more killing. Now what we need is forgiveness." Sacrificial love has transforming power.
K. Koch, Occult Bondage and Deliverance, p. 10
In a dream, Martin Luther found himself being attacked by Satan. The devil unrolled a long scroll containing a list of Luther's sins, and held it before him. On reaching the end of the scroll Luther asked the devil, "Is that all?" "No," came the reply, and a second scroll was thrust in front of him. Then, after a second came a third. But now the devil had no more. "You've forgotten something," Luther exclaimed triumphantly. "Quickly write on each of them, 'The blood of Jesus Christ God's son cleanses us from all sins.'"
In his book. Lee: The Last Years, Charles Bracelen Flood reports that after the Civil War, Robert E. Lee visited a Kentucky lady who took him to the remains of a grand old tree in front of her house. There she bitterly cried that its limbs and trunk had been destroyed by Federal artillery fire. She looked to Lee for a word condemning the North or at least sympathising with her loss. After a brief silence, Lee said, "Cut it down, my dear Madam, and forget it." It is better to forgive the injustices of the past than to allow them to remain, let bitterness take root and poison the rest of our life.
Michael Williams
Chuck Swindoll reports that a seminary student in Chicago faced a forgiveness test. Although he preferred to work in some kind of ministry, the only job he could find was driving a bus on Chicago's south side. One day a gang of tough teens got on board and refused to pay the fare. After a few days of this, the seminarian spotted a policeman on the corner, stopped the bus, and reported them. The officer made them pay, but then he got off. When the bus rounded a corner, the gang robbed the seminarian and beat him severely. He pressed charges and the gang was rounded up. They were found guilty. But as soon as the jail sentence was given, the young Christian saw their spiritual need and felt pity for them. So he asked the judge if he could serve their sentences for them. The gang members and the judge were dumbfounded. "It's because I forgive you," he explained. His request was denied, but he visited the young men in jail and led several of them to faith in Christ.
James Newton, Uncommon Friends
Thomas A. Edison was working on a crazy contraption called a "light bulb" and it took a whole team of men 24 straight hours to put just one together. The story goes that when Edison was finished with one light bulb, he gave it to a young boy helper, who nervously carried it up the stairs. Step by step he cautiously watched his hands, obviously frightened of dropping such a priceless piece of work. You've probably guessed what happened by now; the poor young fellow dropped the bulb at the top of the stairs. It took the entire team of men twenty-four more hours to make another bulb. Finally, tired and ready for a break, Edison was ready to have his bulb carried up the stairs. He gave it to the same young boy who dropped the first one. That's true forgiveness.
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