I want to talk to you about the subject of forgiveness in marriage and forgiveness in your family.
Someone has asked me how do you build a great marriage and I say you got to have two great forgivers. People who are able to forgive one another. Or two people who are able to compromise a little bit or be flexible. Someone else said how do you avoid being broken in life. We got to be flexible. Blessed are the flexible for you will not be broken.
So that’s the way it is with forgiveness. And all of us are offended. All of us are hurt by people in our life and in marriage and family things happen. Sometimes we say things that are inappropriate. We say things in ways that hurt the other person.
Now, when we need forgiveness we need to really avoid topics like or issues like doing things what we call sinful in the Bible. Or like adultery and affairs and things like that. That will destroy marriages. But just in life we do things that we need forgiveness for and I want to talk to you about how to get forgiveness.
Now when you have done something that has hurt your spouse or hurt your child, remember to say these words that are wonderful. Say, “I’m sorry would you forgive me?” And say it with an honest heart, with a sincere heart. If you’ve been inappropriate in something you’ve said or done say to them, “please forgive me. I’m sorry I didn’t want to do that and I’ll try harder not to do that again.” Make the decision that you’re going to do that when you do something wrong, you’ll feel a check in your emotion. And say I’m going to respond to that. I’m going to go to my son or my daughter and ask them to forgive me.
Now don’t continually remind the other person that you make mistakes and that’s just the way it is. Listen, we can get over our mistakes. We can stop doing things using words that are inappropriate raising our voices or behavior that’s wrong. These are learned behaviors, and everything you learn in life you can unlearn. You can learn how to not do things that hurt you or hurt someone else. And you can learn how to do things that help people, that bless them, that encourage them. Remember that when you are asking forgiveness there not just condoning what you did, you are admitting that you’re wrong. You know there’s a powerful Bible truth about this. The Bible says if you confess your sin, in other words admit that you are a sinner, that you did the wrong thing, God is faithful; that means he’ll always do it, he is faithful to forgive you and cleanse you.
And so that’s the way it is with your spouse or your child when you’ve done something wrong confess it. Say, “I blew it. I did something wrong. I said something inappropriate. I was late when I said I’d be home at a certain time.” Admit it, and you know what the other person does? They try to forgive you. They understand. I forgive you and they kind of get over it and you put it behind you because all of us make mistakes. All of us are sinners, all of us fall short of the glory of God.
And so no one is perfect on this earth and we need to forgive each other but most of all I want to remind you you’re like me. I have to ask for forgiveness too, so I go to my spouse, her name is Roslyn, or go to my children Jeremy or Christen and say, “forgive me, I did the wrong thing, I’m sorry would you forgive me? I’m going to really try hard not to do it again.” That’s how easy it is, now those are tough words sometimes, but God will help you because he wants you to know that you can get better. You can improve. You can do marriage better.
