Visiting Teaching Handout July - Forgiveness

Forgiveness truly is a divine attribute is it not?

This is an area we seem to often have opportunity for refinement and betterment.

Opportunity can arise in the shape of us having to forgive someone for some big thing they have done, or for some small thing they didn't know they did.

We often think of forgiveness as something we give to someone else, but I want to turn your mind back to yourself.

Forgiveness is for us. It is a gift given to help us progress.

I taught a lesson on it a long time ago, and took the time to post what I had had learned.

That post is entitled:

Of You It Is Required

It is a bit lengthy, but I learned so much as I studied. You should take a peek at that!

A few items I'll note in this post...

'Whoever else suffers, every sin is against God, for it tends to frustrate the program and purposes of the Almighty. Likewise, every sin is committed against the sinner, for it limits his progress and curtails his development.' (Kimball. Miracle of Forgiveness)

I value these words. Sometimes we are the ones who suffer because of another's sin, but ultimately the sin is not against us, it is against God.

His

law has been broken. And, if I am engaged in sin, by judging, seeking vengeance, withholding love, than

sin is inhibiting my own progress, and possibly salvation.

'This term may not be popular in this age of license and lack of restraint, but what is needed is self-discipline. Can we imagine the angels or the gods not being in control of themselves in any particular? The question is of course ludicrous. Equally ridiculous is the idea that any of us can rise to the eternal heights without

disciplining ourselves

and

being disciplined by the circumstances of life.

The purity and perfection we seek is unattainable without this subjection of unworthy, ungodlike urges

and the corresponding encouragement of their opposites

. We certainly cannot expect the rules to be easier for us than for the Son of God, of whom it is recorded:

Hebrews 5:

Though he were a Son, yet

learned

obedience

by the things which he

suffered

;

And being made

perfect

, he became the

author

of eternal

salvation

unto all them that obey him;

My lesson is to forgive, not because I condone what someone else has done, not because I accept an evil action. It is because I have a choice of how to behave when I am feeling something. Pain and heartache, anger, these are natural emotions that we all feel and have. Nothing in them is inherently wrong. It is what they can lead to, that can keep me from my own progress.

Encouraging their opposites

, as stated above, is self discipline. Their opposites are love, mercy, kindness, all things of God. All things I need to develop if I want to enter into his presence.