August 2, 2015 Cassidy Horvath

Learning to Forgive and be Forgiven

Today at Camp Jamaica we had a Christian living class by the dynamic duo, Jason and Sierra Stewart. They taught us about choice and consequence as well as God's grace and forgiveness. They touched the hearts and minds of the campers and staff alike by being vulnerable and talking about their own choices and the things they have suffered through.  Their stories brought tears to the eyes of many and imprinted the lessons they taught on our hearts.

We learned that in Deuteronomy 30:11 God offers us life and death and that He implores us to choose life so that we may be blessed. However, oftentimes people choose death in their lives and this produces guilt, resentment, and deep-rooted pain. This pain and suffering that plague the world we live in today are consequences of choosing to disobey God or being a victim of someone else's sinful behavior.  When we experience such anger and hurt in our lives we must look to God for forgiveness as well as extend our forgiveness to others.

In order to reach this level of forgiveness we must accept Christ's sacrifice to cover our sins and come to realize that God promises to remove ALL sin from us when we seek Him with a repentant attitude. While seeking God's forgiveness we must understand that with the measure we forgive others, that same measure will be forgiven of us. For this reason Jason and Sierra gave us three ways we can learn to forgive others as well as ourselves.

The first step we must take is recognizing the NEED to forgive. We must acknowledge our feelings and be honest with ourselves about the resentment we are harboring within our hearts. The second step we should do is to replace the bad with the good. Philippians 4:8 tells us to focus on those things which are good and pure. We were taught to think of God rather than to think of the offense. The third thing we should do is to LET IT GO. Matthew 11:29-30 tells us to cast our cares upon the Lord and He will carry them for us. It does us no good to keep bitterness and let it grow within our hearts. Choosing not to forgive only further wounds us.

The final topic we learned about was the gift of God's grace that we are so freely given even though we all deserve death. The campers and staff alike were asked to think of their worst enemy and then to ask ourselves whether we would be willing to take a bullet for them. This type of sacrifice is what Christ did for us. While we were still sinners He suffered and died for us that we may receive grace and have the chance for eternal life. Grace is a gift given to us by God and we must be both willing to receive this gift and forgive ourselves as well as give this gift to others and extend our forgiveness to our worst offenders. To close, Jason and Sierra encouraged us to choose life and to choose healing.