Day by Day with Martin Luther

Read: Joshua 5:1-7:15 Luke 15:1-32 Proverbs 13:1

“Forgive and Forget”

“Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”
[Ephesians 4:32]

The Christian faith, ready to rest completely on God’s Christ, requires a person cheerfully to forgive and forget any injury that he has suffered. That is what God has done with us, and continues to do when He forgives sin: He expunges it from the record and no longer recalls it. Still, it is neither necessary, nor possible, for a man to forget it in the sense that he never thinks of it again, but in the sense that your heart is just and friendly toward your neighbor as it is used to be before he injured you. If the stump remains in your heart in your heart, and you are not as friendly and kind toward him as you used to be, that is certainly not cordial forgiving. If so, you are still a scoundrel who comes to the altar of God with a heart full of anger and hate. Do not walk around with a mask of love, a false smile on your face, and a heart of anger. The Lord despises that thought, walk instead, in forgiveness, walk in Christ’s forgiving, forgetting way.