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Love and Forgiveness Excerpt: Repent and Live
Love and Forgiveness Excerpt: Repent and Live
A
ccording to the Bible, repentance is the ultimate
communication leading to forgiveness and resulting in a
restored relationship. Repentance consists of:
1. acknowledging your sin (wrongdoing, transgression,
offense)
2. accepting responsibility without defending or excusing
yourself or your actions
3. understanding the severity and repercussions for what
you have done and how it affects your relationship
4. humbling yourself and requesting forgiveness from the
one you harmed
5. knowing that mercy and grace are not deserved
6. expressing a sincere desire and intention to change your
ways
7. doing what you need to do (i.e. what’s requested by or
negotiated with the offended person) to restore the
relationship.
Right there you have it! Love will survive anything and
everything. We have to allow it to work when we are given the
opportunity to do so. In other words, love is never going to be the
issue; how we process it and apply it will determine rather we
succeed or fail in our relationships.
Further in his appeal to love in Psalm 51:9, David says,
Don’t keep looking at my sins. Remove the stain of my
guilt.
Do you see how God followed His own process? Nathan the
prophet was His mouthpiece. Nathan was sent directly to David to
confront him with his sin. Isn’t it interesting how David saw the sin
immediately when he thought Nathan was talking about someone
else? We’re still like that, aren’t we? We can identify everyone
else’s faults long before we see our own. But Nathan was
emphatic: “You are the man I’m talking about!” Then Nathan