Many people look at Christianity and see it as the journey of man to get closer to God. If this is our mindset then we miss the point completely because Christianity is about the journey and pains of our loving and righteous Lord, Jesus Christ, to get closer to man.
Romans 3:23 tells us, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." No one deserves God's forgiveness, but despite our sinfulness, God readily made a way so that we would be forgiven and pardoned of our sins.
As we become recipients of this grace that we don't deserve, it would only be natural for us to readily extend grace to others. So why is it such a challenge to fight bitterness? If you're trying your best to make the feelings disappear on your own, then I have bad news -- we can never cleanse our own hearts.
But through understanding God's grace more and more through experiencing His empowering and overwhelming presence, we experience more and more of God's freedom from bitterness and hate. Here are seven verses that we can meditate on and claim as we ask God to give us a heart full of grace and forgiveness.
Psalm 25:16-18. "Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted. The troubles of my heart are enlarged; bring me out of my distresses. Consider my affliction and my trouble, and forgive all my sins."
Matthew 6:14. "For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you..."
Matthew 9:6. "But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins" —he then said to the paralytic— 'Rise, pick up your bed and go home.'"
Matthew 18:21-22. "Then Peter came up and said to him, 'Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?' Jesus said to him, 'I do not say to you seven times, but seventy- seven times.'"
Mark 11:25. "And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses."
Colossians 3:13. "Bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive."
Ephesians 4:31-32. "Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you."
