Living with an unforgiving heart produces emotional misery and spiritual indifference.  Is there anyone in your life that needs to be forgiven?  That is a very easy question to ask, but a very difficult question to answer. But such a question is required to be in good standing with God. 

     In his book, A Resilient Life, Gordon MacDonald speaks about his difficulty with forgiveness.  He writes, “In the maturing years of my life, I learned much about forgiveness.  Forgiveness, I came to see, is about cleaning up the memory by renouncing and flushing vengeful feelings about other people.  Forgiveness is about surrendering the right for vengeance and retribution.  It is about acknowledging that we are all failures in one way or another and that we stand on level ground with any offender before the cross, where God, in Christ forgave us.  None of us has a claim to superiority over any other in God’s presence.”

     Calvary is the solution for the unforgiving soul.  God’s mercy and grace displayed on the cross is the divine remedy for my own unforgiving heart.  When I consider how God forgave me of my wicked and foul trespasses, how can I hold a grudge against another? The most obvious validation of a forgiven heart is a heart that forgives. Being forgiven gives way to forgiveness.