[Darris McNeely] Have you ever tried to forgive someone, someone who’s offended you, and you can’t do it? It’s very difficult. As human beings, we tend to linger and keep attitudes toward people where we have been offended – someone has said something to us, or an action has been done against us, and it’s hard to forgive. But when we really want to forgive, then we come to a point even it is hard. I’ve talked with people who find it very difficult to forgive people. And you know, what makes it even worse is when you read a verse like Psalm 103. It talks about how God forgives us, beginning in verse 10. It says, “For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His mercy toward those who fear Him. For as the east is from the west, so has He removed our transgressions from us” Psalm 103:10-12). God has not dealt with us regarding and according to our sins, and He has not punished us according to our sins. He has been very, very merciful. And the scripture says that He removes it from His own sight. And we read something like that and we think, Man, I need to be like God, but I can’t be. I just can’t let go. You feel even guiltier as a result of that.

Here’s the key. I ran across this the other day when I was reading through a passage. 1 John chapter 1 and verse 7, and it says this: “For if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). If we harbor an unforgiving spirit towards someone, then that can become a sin for us, and to have that sin cleansed even from us, from our mind and from our heart, takes the same blood that it does for any other sin that we might commit. It’s the blood of Jesus Christ. Ask God to apply Christ’s blood to even your sin of unforgiveness, and see if that might not be the key that does finally remove that spirit from us and allows us to forgive someone the pain, the hurt that they have done to us, and move on and away from that. And be then like God, where we remove it, and the memory is no longer there.

God can remove from us offense, and He can cleanse even our heart of an unforgiving sin. As you think about the Passover service, forgiveness is a key thought. Let’s see if we can also apply that and remove from our hearts the sin of unforgiveness, through the blood of Jesus Christ.

That’s BT Daily. Join us next time.