This essay on forgiveness is offered by Susan Bauer, one of the many supporters who pray for GateWay of Hope.

Forgiveness graphicWho else on the face of the earth forgives their enemies except Christians? No one. Not one. Right?

Loving enemies, i.e. forgiving them, is the most Christ-like thing any of us can do.

Romans 5: 6-8, 10 “… But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us…For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more , having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life.”

And we know that we weren’t only saved from God’s wrath, i.e. hell, we were adopted into his family and our sinful lives were exchanged for Christ’s perfect record. We were given heaven, and we will rule and reign with him forever.

God did all the suffering and we waltzed into a life of pure blessing. It’s the same for us. When we forgive, we do all the suffering, and the person forgiven gets all the blessing of not being persecuted. In fact, sometimes we get a chance to actually do good deeds for them which they can see and enjoy.

How fair is that? Not at all. But it is Christ-like.

So, what good does our forgiveness do right now? Well, God is happy. But not just God, the angels are happy and amazed. They are always watching us and give praise to God because they see that Christ’s death on the cross really worked.

It produced a changed people who obey God and love others. That’s a miracle.

So, who do I need to forgive? Well, all the bad men who hurt women and little girls. I don’t think these men deserve to be forgiven, but that’s not the point.

I am totally, 100% sure that forgiveness is the most important thing a Christian needs to learn. Period.

So I pray that we can all be counter-intuitive, counter-cultural and counter-evil and learn how to forgive.

2014 GateWay of Hope – The Helping Place for Hurting Women