Forgiveness: Say What?

This year we are doing a Christmas series called Christmas is... The theme of the series is that Christmas is a time when we should be seeking forgiveness from those we have hurt and offering forgiveness to those who have hurt us.

As I sat down over the last few weeks to work on these messages I got to thinking about something. When it comes to Judging people we have different standards. For, example:

• We judge other people by their actions.
• We want to be judged by our intentions.

Think about those for a second. We judge others by what they do and we want to be judged by our intentions. If we didn't mean to hurt someone then they shouldn't have taken what we said in a hurtful manner right?

Wrong. We need to realize that this runs both ways. Other people are judging you by your actions and themselves by their intentions. Remember that the next time someone is hurt by something you have said or done. That will make it easier to go to them and ask for their forgiveness.