Quotes About Forgiveness

Could it be that Christians, eager to point out how good we are, neglect the basic fact that the gospel sounds like good news only to bad people?

recall Gandhi's remark that if you take the principle "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" to its logical conclusion, eventually the whole world will go blind and toothless.

The essence of Christian faith has come to us in story form, the story of a God who will go to any lengths to get his family back. The Bible tells of flawed people -- people just like me -- who make shockingly bad choices and yet still find themselves pursued by God. As they receive grace and forgiveness, naturally they want to give it to others, and a thread of hope and transformation weaves its way throughout the Bible's accounts.

I could no more pray the Our Father, I could no longer call myself a Christian, if I refuse to forgive. Humanly speaking, I cannot do it, but God will give us his strength!

What we have to go through to commit sin distances us from God—we change in the very act of rebellion—and there is no guarantee we will ever come back. You ask me about forgiveness now, but will you even want it later, especially if it involves repentance?

Grace is for the desperate, the needy, the broken, those who cannot make it on their own. Grace is for all of

Christians should not compromise in hating sin, says Lewis. Rather we should hate the sins in others in the same way we hate them in ourselves: being sorry the person has done such things and hoping that somehow, sometime, somewhere, that person will be cured.

Jesus did not eliminate evil; he revealed a God willing, at immense cost, to forgive it and to heal its damage.

The only hope for the future lay in an all-embracing attitude of forgiveness of the peoples who had been our enemies.

Who is my enemy? The abortionist? The Hollywood producer polluting our culture? The politician threatening my moral principles? The drug lord ruling my inner city? If my activism, however well-motivated, drives out love, then I have misunderstood Jesus' gospel. I am stuck with law, not the gospel of grace.

Ungrace causes cracks to fissure open between mother and daughter, father and son, brother and sister, between scientists, and prisoners, and tribes, and races. Left alone, cracks widen, and for the resulting chasms of ungrace there is only one remedy: the frail rope-bridge of forgiveness.

Politics deals with externals: borders, wealth, crimes. Authentic forgiveness deals with the evil in a person's heart, something for which politics has no cure.

if I care to listen, I hear a loud whisper from the gospel that I did not get what I deserved. I deserved punishment and got forgiveness. I deserved wrath and got love. I deserved debtor's prison and got instead a clean credit history. I deserved stern lectures and crawl-on-your-knees repentance; I got a banquet—Babette's feast—spread for me.

instruct the ignorant, counsel the doubtful, admonish sinners, bear wrongs patiently, forgive offences willingly, comfort the afflicted, pray for the living and the dead.

Think of all the squabbles Adam and Eve must have had in the course of their nine hundred years," wrote Martin Luther. "Eve would say, 'You ate the apple,' and Adam would retort, 'You gave it to me.

A human being is not someone who once in a while makes a mistake, and God is not someone who now and then forgives. No, human beings are sinners and God is love.

by denying forgiveness to others, we are in effect determining them unworthy of God's forgiveness, and thus so are we.

God is the ultimate judge of hypocrisy in the church, I decided; I would leave such judgment in God's capable hands. I began to relax and grow softer, more forgiving of others. After all, who has a perfect spouse, or perfect parents or children? We do not give up on the institution of family because of its imperfections—why give up on the church?

How differently will I relate to the uncommitted if I view them not as evil or unsaved but rather as lost.

In other words, the proof of spiritual maturity is not how 'pure' you are but awareness of your impurity. That very awareness opens the door to grace.

Love one another Forgive one another Pray for one another Bear one another's burdens Be devoted to one another Regard one another as more important than yourself Do not speak against one another Do not judge one another Show tolerance for one another Be kind to one another Speak truth to one another Build up one another Comfort one another Care for one another Stimulate one another to love and good deeds

The world starves for grace.

two major causes of most emotional problems among evangelical Christians are these: the failure to understand, receive, and live out God's unconditional grace and forgiveness; and the failure to give out that unconditional love, forgiveness, and grace to other people. . . . We read, we hear, we believe a good theology of grace. But that's not the way we live. The good news of the Gospel of grace has not penetrated the level of our emotions.

The proof of spiritual maturity, Tolstoy contended, is not how "pure" you are but awareness of your impurity. That very awareness opens the door to grace.