Economy of the Heart

Bible Reading: (click to view in web browser)
Colossians 3:12-14


Focus verse: "Bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another."  Colossians 3:13a

In his book, The Gift of Forgiveness, Charles Stanley wrote, "Forgiveness is something each of us has had to deal with one way or another. What might take you just a short time to work through might be a process that takes someone else time, prayer, and godly counsel. But it is a process we cannot ignore, not if we want to be free to become the persons God created us to be."1

Stanley went on to say that if we refuse to deal with the bitterness and resentments that put us in bondage, we cannot have the fellowship with our Father we are supposed to have.

It's not easy to forgive another. Some wounds are deep and last for decades. But hatred and bitterness are bars we use to imprison ourselves. When we place the other person in God's hands and release the bitterness to Him, we're set free, just as truly as being released from jail.

Forgiveness is the economy of the heart. A Christian will find it cheaper to pardon than to resent. Forgiveness saves the expense of anger, the cost of hatred, the waste of spirits.
From The Berean Magazine, November 21, 1826

1Charles Stanley, The Gift of Forgiveness (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1991), 105.

~Dr. David Jeremiah, Today's Turning Point