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The Bible Says
In his heart-searching book, “A FORGIVING GOD in an UNFORGIVING WORLD,” Ronlee Davis tells of a touching experience some years earlier in his exciting career. “In the summer of 1983 I was present as Chuck Colson (the one-time Watergate defendant, now a lay evangelist and prison-reform advocate) addressed an audience of pastors and lay Christians gathered form 134 countries in an event called Amsterdam ’83, sponsored by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. During his talk Colson told about a recent visit he made with some Christian laymen to the death row of one of America’s largest prisons, the Indiana State Penitentiary. Twenty men were there awaiting execution, and with them were 20 Christian Volunteers, singing and praying and sharing Jesus Christ. “Two men especially caught Colson’s attention as they prayed together. One was an inmate, a convicted murderer, a black man whom we’ll call Henry Lewis; he was waiting to die. The other was a Christian volunteer, a white man we’ll call Thomas Dodge. “As the group of volunteers was preparing to leave, Colson noticed Henry Lewis and Thomas Dodge going Back to Lewis’ cell together. Colson followed them into the cell and said to Dodge, ‘We have to go. The warden is waiting to escort us out of the cell block.’ “Dodge said, ‘Chuck, can’t you wait a little while longer?’ ‘We really need to get going,’ Colson replied. ‘I have a very tight schedule. Some of us have other appointments.’ ‘Chuck, please, ’Dodge quietly pleaded, ‘this is very important. You see, I am Judge Thomas Dodge, and I sentenced this man, Henry Lewis, to die. But since he was placed in this prison he has become a Christian, my brother in the Lord. We just need a few more minutes to forgive each other, and to pray for each other, and to love each other.’ “In that prison cell stood two men, one black, one white; one was powerless, the other was powerful; one was sentenced to die, the other the judge who pronounced sentence. And they stood there, arms wrapped around each other with a love the world doesn’t understand, Revival came to the Indiana State Penitentiary in the days that followed, in ways never before seen in the history of the prison. If God can reconcile Thomas Dodge and Henry Lewis, He can reconcile any of us in the church, no matter what our differences. When the world sees authentic love, reconciling people with incredible differences through Jesus Christ, Revival always comes.”
–A forgiving God In an Unforgiving World by Ron Lee Davis pages 95-96
Would you really want your eternal salvation to be determined by the way you forgive other people? Jesus did not say a forgiving spirit would save us. I believe He was talking to those already saved. The thought is, as Christians we should love and forgive others. How many times have you lost your temper already today? If the Holy Spirit of God does not dominate your life, you may have a grudge against somebody most of the time. Right?
To fling an ill feeling aside, Than allow the deep, cankering fetter Of revenge in your breast to abide; For your stop o’er life’s path will be brighter When the load from your bosom is cast, And the glorious sky will seem brighter When the clouds of displeasure have past. Tho your spirits swell high with emotion, To give back in justice again, Sink the thought in oblivion’s ocean, For remembrance increases the pain; Oh, why should we linger in sorrow, When the shadows are passing away, Or seek to encounter tomorrow, The blasts that o’erswept us today. Our life’s stream is a varying river And tho it may placidly glide When the sunbeams of joy o’er it quiver, It must foam when the storm meets the tide; Then stir not its current to madness For its wrath thou wilt ever regret, Tho the morning breaks on your sadness, E’er the sun sets, forgive and forget.
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