Forgiving each other is also for the benefit of the one being forgiven.
God never gives up on anyone so we shouldn’t either:
New American Standard Bible
3 And so He told them this parable, saying, 4 “What man among you, if he has a hundred sheep and has lost one of them, does not leave the other ninety-nine in the open pasture and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? 5 And when he has found it, he puts it on his shoulders, rejoicing. 6 And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, because I have found my sheep that was lost!’ 7 I tell you that in the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who have no need of repentance.
New American Standard Bible
Ninety-nine Plus One
12 “What do you think? If any man has a hundred sheep, and one of them goes astray, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains, and go and search for the one that is lost? 13 And if it turns out that he finds it, truly I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that have not gone astray. 14 So it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven for one of these little ones to perish.
New Living Translation
38 And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love (I believe that this 'US' means everyone, no matter how far you believe that you have fallen). Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. 39 No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
What we think and do is influenced by others:
I recently did a piece on Propaganda which I think goes well with this one on Forgiving One Another. Propaganda is psychological tricks to influence the minds of others. It is used by our leaders to take us into wars. It is used to build hate and anger between people.
One definition of propaganda is information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view.
New American Standard Bible
21 If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat;
And if he is thirsty, give him water to drink;
22 For you will heap burning coals on his head,
And the Lord will reward you.
What does “burning coals” on his head mean?
I did a piece a while back ‘Enemies become friends.’ It is about two soldiers, one American and the other Japanese. They hated each other when the war began between Japan and the United States with the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941. One thing that stuck with we when I wrote this piece was something that Captain Mitsuo Fuchida, the commander who led the attacks on Pearl Harbor said; “The many men I had killed had been slaughtered in the name of patriotism, for I did not understand the love which Christ wishes to implant within every heart.”
The things that people do in wars makes it very difficult to forgive. When you think about what Yeshua Jesus did for us, all of us, what He went through to do that! Yet while he hung on the cross He said, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”
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