An unforgiving spirit is unforgivable.

I want to tell you something, mister: that unforgiving spirit will do more damage to you than it will ever do to the person you refuse to forgive. Did you know that? Did you know that resentment and an unforgiving spirit is slow suicide?

Did you know that hate is an acid that destroys its container?

What a debilitating effect it has on us, emotionally as well as spiritually—people spending all their time, their lives, trying to get even. Friend, don’t you realize that that’s exactly what you do? You get even. When you’re up here and somebody wrongs you, they’re down here. When you get even, where are you? You’re down there with them. You don’t want to get even with them. No, you want to bring them to where you are and to restore that person.

Now, why? Why? Why? What are the compelling reasons for forgiving one another? Number one: the grace we share—God has forgiven us. Number two: the guilt we bear—even though we have been forgiven, and saved, and brought into the kingdom of God, even so, day by day, we fail, and we sin, and we need that daily pardon. “But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” (Matthew 6:15)

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

Adrian Rogers, “Dangerous Prayer,” in Adrian Rogers Sermon Archive (Signal Hill, CA: Rogers Family Trust, 2017), Mt 6:9–15.