God, Our Example

“O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all…Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellow servant, even as I had pity on thee?” I had a preacher friend, now in Heaven, who used to say of a younger man he had helped, and who showed no appreciation, “He has a short memory.” I’m afraid many of us have memory lapses when it comes to the goodness God has shown us in the past.

How prone we all are to soon forget God’s gracious dealings with us, when we are dealing with one another. The Lord tells His people in the Old Testament to remember who they were and what He did for them. He admonishes His elect to “Love ye therefore the stranger: for ye were strangers…” He goes on to say why they could, and should, do this. “…for ye know the heart of a stranger seeing ye were strangers.”

The New Testament’s commentary on these texts is, “And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.”

Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it. ~Mark Twain