Power of Forgiveness

As I prepared my message on Forgiveness this week, I came across a great story as told by Brennan Manning. It's a story of a women who visited her priest and told him that when she prays, she sees Jesus in a vision.

“He appears to me as real as you are standing here right now, Father,” said the woman. “And He speaks to me. He tells me that He loves me and wants to be with me. Do you think I’m crazy?”

“Not at all,” replied the priest. “But to make sure it is really Jesus who is visiting you, I want you to ask Him a question when He appears to you again. Ask Him to tell you the sins that I confess to Him in confession. Then come back and tell me what He said.”

A few days later the women returned.

“Did you have another vision of Jesus?” the priest inquired of her.

“Yes I did Father,” she replied.

“And did you ask Him to tell you the sins that I confessed to Him while I was in confession?”

“Yes I did,” the woman answered.

“And what did He tell you?” asked the priest expectantly.

“He said...’I forgot.’”

I love that about God.

The more we understand the extent of God's forgiveness of us, the more we will be able to forgive one another. There is great power in forgiveness.

I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more. Isaiah 43:25

As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. Psalm 103:12