The Proverbial Sunrise – From the Heart

Where is the heart of your home?

Is it in the kitchen around the family table or in stools pulled towards a bar or counter?

Is it in the family room or den, relaxing on couches, chairs , or stretched out on the floor?

Maybe it’s in a bedroom, where tranquility reigns and easy conversation flows effortlessly while stretched across a familiar quilt?

Wherever this heart may be in your home, it is the place where people can come together and feel love, hope, and security. It is where joy can be shared, problems solved, and heartaches comforted. It is HOME...

The heart of our physical bodies is the place where we feel love, hope and security, but it can also harbor feelings of distrust, bitterness, and hate. It can bring forth good things or it can release bad things.

When Jesus told the parable of the unmerciful servant in Matthew 18, he ended the story with a very important point.

“Then the master called the servant in. 'You wicked servant,' he said, 'I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?' In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.

This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.”

Matthew 18:32-35 NIV

Sometimes we tend to forgive with our head and our lips...but not from our heart. That center of our life blood...where love grows and hate hides...the heart of our very being...

When forgiveness only comes from the head, our earthly reasoning sets in and starts analyzing the person or situation to death, and it becomes impossible to truly forgive. We try to “fix” people and convince ourselves we have the answer for everything. Our heart hardens...

Forgiveness from the heart comes from a place that runs deep...a place that has been broken into pieces so that unconditional love flows freely...a place where the Saviour has placed His healing hands and covered with His precious blood.

The heart is the place where Jesus wants our forgiveness to come from...just as our Heavenly Father gifts us with divine grace and forgiveness, after all we have done...so should we extend forgiveness to others.

Heavenly Father, In your Son’s name, we thank you for forgiveness. Your unconditional love that runs so wide and so deep...let it flow into our broken hearts and fill all the cracks...soften the hard edges until it seeps into the very center of our hearts...so we can be vessels of Your love that spill over onto everyone we meet...let that overflowing love show true mercy so our hearts will be filled with forgiveness for others.

Please visit Amanda at The Proverbial Sunrise to be inspired and touched by reading more about forgiveness.