When You Forgive, You Are Like Christ

“Before we finish this funeral service,” her words rang out clearly to the thousand people in attendance, “I want to tell you what my husband told me before dying. He asked me to tell all his murderers that he goes to heaven loving wholeheartedly everybody, including his assassins. He has forgiven all for what they have done because Jesus loves and will also forgive them.”

    She stood over her husband’s coffin. There were tears in her eyes, but her voice was strong. The bruises on her body told the mourners that she, too, had been beaten.

    As Christians, she and her husband had refused to take a Kikuyu tribal oath that wasn’t consistent with their Christian faith. For this, her husband was beaten to death, and she was beaten and hospitalized.

    The crowd was still, silenced by the power of the widow’s words, and her will. Many living in Kenya in 1969 had also faced harassment and attack for valuing their faith over tribal loyalties.

    “I, as his widow, also tell all of you, in the presence of my dead husband, that I hate none of those who killed him. I love the killers. I forgive them, knowing that Christ has died for them too.”

    No one in attendance that day would ever forget the widow’s words or her example of extreme forgiveness and grace.

Forgiveness is an extreme example of what it means to be like Christ, to extend his grace to others. No one has ever had to forgive more than Jesus Christ. Nothing can compare to the weight of an entire world’s sins on his shoulders at Calvary. Therefore, when we forgive those who hate us, we are never more like Jesus than at that moment. Forgiveness does not make the wrongs that were done to you right. Forgiveness makes you all right. Forgiveness does not mean letting your perpetrators off the hook. Forgiveness means letting yourself off the hook and getting released from the tyranny of vengeful thoughts. Forgiving others for their wrongs gives you a chance to shine for Christ like never before. Where will you shine the light of God’s forgiveness today?