Forgiveness is the Key

Years after her concentration camp experiences in Nazi Germany, Corrie ten Boom met face to face one of the most cruel and heartless German guards that she had ever contacted. He had humiliated and degraded her and her sister. He had jeered and visually raped them as they stood in the delousing shower. Now he stood before her with hand outstretched and said, "Will you forgive me?"

She writes: "I stood there with coldness clutching at my heart, but I know that the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart. I prayed, Jesus, help me! Woodenly, mechanically I thrust my hand into the one stretched out to me and i experienced an incredible thing. The current started in my shoulder, raced down into my arms and sprang into our clutched hands. Then this warm reconciliation seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes. 'I forgive you, brother,' I cried with my whole heart. For a long moment we grasped each other's hands, the former guard, the former prisoner. I have never known the love of God so intensely as I did in that moment!"

To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.

I often wonder how many people in the church are in bondage to unforgiveness. The problem is that we think that our unforgiveness controls the other person. No, my friends, the unforgiveness only controls us. If Corrie ten Boom can forgive a person for such cruel and inhumane things such as the ones done by this former Nazi, surely we can forgive someone who has mistreated us, said hurtful things about us, or wronged us in some way.

Forgiveness is the key to opening up the love of God into our lives.