God Is Forgiving Quotes & Sayings

The average person thinks that the purpose of religion is to give us a list of rules and techniques or to frame a way of life that helps us to be more loving, forgiving, patient, caring, and generous. Of course, there is plenty of this in the Bible. Like Moses, Jesus summarized the whole law in just those terms: loving God and neighbor. However, as crucial as the law remains as the revelation of God's moral will, it is different from the revelation of God's saving will. We are called to love God and neighbor, but that is not the gospel. Christ need not have died on a cross for us to know that we should be better people. It is not that moral exhortations are wrong, but they do not have any power to bring about the kind of world that they command. These exhortations and directions may be good. If they come from the Word of God, they are in fact perfect. But they are not the gospel. — Michael S. Horton

The Cross is not simply a lovely example of sacrificial love. Throwing your life away needlessly is not admirable - it is wrong. Jesus' death was only a good example if it was more than an example, if it was something absolutely necessary to rescue us. And it was. Why did Jesus have to die in order to forgive us? There was a debt to be paid - God himself paid it. There was a penalty to be born - God himself bore it. Forgiveness is always a form of costly suffering. — Timothy Keller

The reason to forgive ourselves is not because we feel like it or because we want to see ourselves as blameless but because we limit what we can receive from God when we hold on to our past. He wants to do so much more than we could ever imagine. Forgiving yourself starts with believing in God's incredible love for you and accepting His amazing grace and mercy. If God Almighty can forgive us who are we to hold on to what He has not only forgiven but forgotten — Sue Augustine

When the Lord Jesus Christ became my surety ... He went to Calvary's cross, and all my guilt was charged against Him. He settled for everything, and then He cried, 'It is finished.' And on the basis of that finished work, God can freely forgive, and justify completely, every poor sinner who trusts in the Lord Jesus Christ. — Henry Allen Ironside

Nothing stirs God's heart more than a humble heart and a merciful spirit. God responds to mercy, because it is through compassion that we fully come to know Him. This is the defining quality of a true follower of Christ. We are never closer to the heart of God than when we are forgiving someone. And we are never farther from it than when we are holding a grudge. — Nicky Cruz

My calling is to preach the love of God and the forgiveness of God and the fact that he does forgive us. — Billy Graham

The hardest thing is to forgive, but God does, even if you murdered or robbed, ya it's wrong, but God loves, take one step toward him he'll take two toward you, even when all else fails, God'll support you — Nas

When God forgives our sin, he is not changing his mind about us; he is changing our mind about him. — Herbert McCabe

No matter how many flaws we have, our God is so forgiving and understanding. He'll never leave you or forsake you. So that brings peace to me. — Adrian Peterson

Prayer is the converse of the soul with God. Therein we manifest or express to Him our reverence, and love for His divine perfection, our gratitude for all His mercies, our penitence for our sins, our hope in His forgiving love, our submission to His authority, our confidence in His care, our desires for His favour, and for the providential and spiritual blessings needed for ourselves and others. — Charles Hodge

It is not the ambassador, it is not the messenger, but the Lord Himself that saveth His people. The Lord remaineth alone, for no man can be partner with God in forgiving sins; this office belongs solely to Christ, who taketh away the sins of the world. — Ambrose

God, help me to tell the thruth to the strong and to avoid telling lies to get the weak's applause. If you give me success, do not take away my humility. If you give me humility, do not take away my dignity. God, help me to see the other side of the medal. Don't let me blame others of treason just because they don't think they like me. God, teach me to love people as I love myself and to judge me as I judge others. Please, don't let me be proud if I succed, or fall in despair if I fall. Remind me that failure is the experience that precedes triumph. Teach me that forgiving is the most important in the strong and that revenge is the most primitive sigh in the weak. If you take away my success, let me keep my strength to succeed from failure. If I fall people, give me courage to apologize and if people fail me, give me courage to forgive them. God, if I forget you, please do not forget me. — Mahatma Gandhi

The antidote for pride is humility; meekness; submissiveness...
Let us choose to be humble.
We can choose to humble ourselves by
conquering enmity toward our brothers and sisters,
esteeming them as ourselves,
and lifting them as high or higher than we are...
We can choose to humble ourselves
by receiving counsel and chastisement...
We can choose to humble ourselves by
forgiving those who have offended us...
We can choose to humble ourselves by
rendering selfless service...
We can chose to humble ourselves by
going on missions and preaching the word that can humble others...
We can choose to humble ourselves by
getting to the temple more frequently...
We can choose to humble ourselves by
confessing and forsaking our sins and being born of God...
We can choose to humble ourselves by loving God,
submitting our will to His, and putting Him first in our lives — Ezra Taft Benson

We are vengeful. God is forgiving. We remember. God redeems. — Aiden Wilson Tozer

Forgiveness is God's invention for coming to terms with a world in which people are unfair to each other and hurt each other deeply. He began by forgiving us. And He invites us all to forgive each other. — Lewis B. Smedes

True repentance is a turning from sin ... Humanly speaking, it is our small part in the plan of salvation. Our part is repenting. God will do the converting, the transforming, and the forgiving. — Billy Graham

Americans deify democracy in a way that allows for a dim awareness that they have, from time to time, stood in defiance of their God. But democracy is a forgiving God and America's heresies - torture, theft, enslavement - are so common among individuals and nations that none can declare themselves immune. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

What is forgiving? Forgiving is giving up all claims on the one who has hurt you and letting go of the emotional consequences of the hurt. How can we do that? It's done at the price of beating back our pride. By nature we are selfish. Forgiving by definition is unselfish. Being hurt by another person wounds our pride. Pride stands in the way of forgiving. We cannot forgive without God's help. It might be possible for us to forgive something inconsequential without God's help; but in significant matters, we're unlikely to accomplish anything without God's involvement in the process. — Richard Walters

God's forgiving grace is incomplete until he gives me - and I accept - a new kingdom-building dream and opportunity. — Robert H. Schuller

It is of course evident that everything in one's religious life depends upon the sort of God one worships. The character of the worshiper must necessarily be molded by the character of the object worshipped. If it is a cruel and revengeful God, or a selfish and unjust God, the worshiper will be cruel, and revengeful, and selfish, and unjust, also. If it is a loving, tender, forgiving, unselfish God, the worshiper will be loving, and tender, and forgiving, and unselfish, as well. — Hannah Whitall Smith

God is forgiving or we would not still be walking this world. But to be moral is not to need his divine forgiveness, I think. — Rachel Caine

You can tell the people that if they succeed in killing me, that I forgive and bless those who do it. Hopefully, they will realize they are wasting their time. A bishop will die, but the church of God, which is the people, will never perish. — Oscar Romero

Everything in your spiritual life depends on the sort of God you worship. Because the character of the worshiper will always be molded by the character of what he worships: If it is a cruel and revengeful God, the worshiper will be the same, but if it is a loving, tender, forgiving, unselfish God, the worshiper will be transformed slowly, wonderfully, into this likeness.1 — Nancy Leigh DeMoss

Be Strong In The Grace That Is In Christ Jesus It was this grace or free love which first began with you, and with which you began. It was this which you at first 'apprehended,' or rather, which 'apprehended' you; and your special character is that of men who 'know the grace of God' (Col. 1:6); who have 'tasted that the Lord is gracious' (1 Pet. 2:3); men on whom God has had compassion (Rom. 9:15); men to whom He has shown His forgiving love. Such is your name. — Horatius Bonar

So Allah has to deny perfect justice in order to be merciful. There's no penalty for wrongdoing if you have done enough good things to offset it. But true justice doesn't work that way, not even on earth. If someone is convicted of fraud, the judge doesn't say, 'Well, he was a kind Little League coach. That offsets it.' In Islam, Allah is not perfectly just, because if he were, people would have to pay the penalty for every sin, and no one would get into paradise. That's what perfect justice is." I pushed the vegetables around on my neglected plate. "But I thought God is forgiving. You're implying that because of justice, God can't forgive." "God is forgiving. God wants to forgive people more than anything in the world, to restore them to himself. What I'm saying is that God's desire to forgive doesn't negate his perfect justice. Someone has to pay the penalty for sins. God's justice demands it. — David Gregory

My past life is abundantly full of God's mercy, and, above all sin, stands the forgiving love of the Crucified. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

You're following the Lord wholeheartedly, yet you're missing out on the forgiveness part. God's not just in the business of saving us from our sins. He's also in the business of forgiving those sins and putting them as far as the east is from the west. — Jody Hedlund

Married life, offered in service to God, is such a good and rewarding life. Let's give ourselves fully to it; let's keep building our "marital house" until we die, pursuing each other, forgiving each other, loving each other, and growing together through the years. If we do this, we will, like Anne, be richly blessed with a lifelong love. — Gary L. Thomas

Love is daily admitting to yourself, your spouse, and God that you are not able to love this way without God's protecting, providing, forgiving, rescuing, and delivering grace. — Paul David Tripp

If we forgive God for his crime against us, which is to have made us finite creatures, He will forgive our crime against him, which is that we are finite creatures. — Simone Weil

know that neither to have the child nor not to have the child is without the possibility of tragic consequences for everybody yet (b) be brave in knowing also that not even that can put us beyond the forgiving love of God. — Frederick Buechner

God is more ready to forgive me than I am ready to offend. — Charles Spurgeon

Only through the Eucharist is it possible to live the heroic virtues of Christianity: charity, to the point of forgiving one's enemies; love for those who make us suffer; chastity in every age and situation of life; patience in suffering and when one is shocked by the silence of God in the tragedies of history or of one's own personal existence. You must always be Eucharistic souls in order to be authentic Christians — Pope John Paul II

It is not possible that a just God should forgive people who are wicked because another person who was good endured agony by being nailed to a cross. — Rebecca West

Our God is righteous enough to judge and kind enough to forgive. — Kevin DeYoung

He has forbidden you only carrion, blood, and the flesh of swine; also any flesh that is consecrated other than in the name of God. But for one who is driven by necessity, neither craving nor transgressing, it is no sin. For God is forgiving and merciful. — Anonymous

The Church does not invent sins but recognizes the will of God and has to declare it. Of course, the great thing.. is that upon the Church, which has to declare the will of God in its full magnitude, in its unconditional rigor, so that man should know his true measure, is bestowed as a gift, at the same time, the task of forgiving. — Pope Benedict XVI

Our God is a forgiving God. — George H. W. Bush

Because God is a God of mercy and His mercy endures forever, you can trust that he will have mercy on you (See: 1 Chronicles 17:13). Therefore you can show mercy to your spouse by forgiving whenever he (she) does or says something that hurts or disturbs you. — Stormie O'martian

The whole image is that eternal suffering awaits anyone who questions God's infinite love. That's the message we're brought up with, isn't it? Believe or die! Thank you, forgiving Lord, for all those options. — Bill Hicks

As a Christian should do no injuries to others, so he should forgive the injuries that others do to him. It is to be like God, who is a good-giving God, and a sin-forgiving God. — Ralph Venning

I accepted what the Sisters taught in religion class: that God is loving, merciful, charitable, forgiving. That message didn't jibe with adults smacking kids. — Sonia Sotomayor

God is continually, literally, second-by-second covering our sin under His Son's blood and forgiving us our sins. God cannot love us unless He forgives us and cannot forgive us without a commitment to love us. — Dan B. Allender

Confession is an act of honesty and courage - an act of entrusting ourselves, beyond sin, to the mercy of a loving and forgiving God. — Pope John Paul II

My grandmother's greatest gift was tolerance. Now, in the old days, Indians used to be forgiving of any kind of eccentricity. In fact, weird people were often celebrated. Epileptics were often shamans because people just assumed that God gave seizure-visions to the lucky ones. Gay people were seen as magical too. I mean, like in many cultures, men were viewed as warriors and women were viewed as caregivers. But gay people, being both male and female, were seen as both warriors and caregivers. Gay people could do anything. They were like Swiss Army knives! My grandmother had no use for all the gay bashing and homophobia in the world, especially among other Indians. "Jeez," she said, Who cares if a man wants to marry another man? All I want to know is who's going to pick up all the dirty socks?" (155) — Sherman Alexie

No other occupation offers more ways to help others learn and grow, take responsibility and be recognized for achievement, and contribute to the success of a team. I drew heavily upon this learning to mold my likeness. From these parts of my life, I distilled the likeness of what I wanted to become:
- A man who is dedicated to helping improve the lives of other people
- A kind, honest, forgiving, and selfless husband, father, and friend
- A man who just doesn't just believe in God, but who believes God — Clayton M Christensen

But the true miracle of the resurrection wasn't so much the raising. Is something like that too hard for the God who made the universe? The true miracle is in the forgiving. And though we are bruised and burned, blind and broken, we are forgiven. — Lisa Samson

If God says, 'I forgive you,' you are forgiven no matter how you feel, and to refuse that forgiveness is an act of arrogance. — R.C. Sproul

Thinking about forgiving is not enough. You must come to a moment when you say, "With God's help I now forgive." — Norman Vincent Peale

God is compassionate and just, loving and holy, wrathful and forgiving. WE can't sideline His more difficult attributes to make room for the palatable ones. — Francis Chan

This is practically the language used to fallen women, and chiefly by their own sex: "God may forgive you, but we never can!" a declaration which, however common, in spirit if not in substance, is, when one comes to analyse it, unparalleled in its arrogance of blasphemy. That for a single offence, however grave, a whole life should be blasted, is a doctrine repugnant even to Nature's own dealings in the visible world. — Dinah Maria Murlock Craik

God is more eager to forgive us than we are to be forgiven. — James Bryan Smith

I have never targeted Muslims. I have never targeted Jews. I believe that we should declare the fact that God loves you, God's willing to forgive you, God can change you, and Christ and his kingdom is open to anybody who repents and by faith receives him as lord and savior. — Billy Graham

Today's review covers the following ideas: 1. (65) 'My only function is the one that God gives to me.' The only function that I have is the one of forgiving that God gives to me. Recognizing this releases me from all conflict, because I have only one goal. With only one purpose, I always know what to do, what to say, and what to think. All doubt disappears as I acknowledge that my only function is the one that God gives to me. 2. Specific applications might take this form: 'The personal mind's perception of this does not change my function.' 'This does not give me a function that replaces the one that God gives to me.' 'I will not use this to justify a function that God does not give to me.' 3. (66) 'My Happiness and my function are One.' All that comes from God is One. What comes from Oneness, I must receive as One. Fulfilling my function is my — Elizabeth A. Cronkhite

If your fundamental is a man dying on the cross for his enemies, if the very heart of your self-image and your religion is a man praying for his enemies as he died for them, sacrificing for them, loving them - if that sinks into your heart of hearts, it's going to produce the kind of life that the early Christians produced. The most inclusive possible life out of the most exclusive possible claim - and that is this is the truth. But what is the truth? The truth is a God become weak, loving and dying for the people who opposed him, dying forgiving them. — Timothy Keller

Do we refuse to forgive? God, too, will refuse to forgive us. As we treat our neighbors, so also does God treat us. The forgiveness or unforgiveness of your sins, then, and hence also your salvation or destruction, depend on you yourself. For without forgiveness of sins there is no salvation. You can see for yourself how serious it is. — Tikhon Of Zadonsk

Remember!
It is Christianity to do good always
even to those who do evil to us. It is Christianity to love our neighbours as ourself, and to do to all men as we would have them do to us. It is Christianity to be gentle, merciful and forgiving, and to keep those qualities quiet in our own hearts, and never make a boast of them or of our prayers or of our love of God, but always to show that we love Him by humbly trying to do right in everything. If we do this, and remember the life and lessons of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and try to act up to them, we may confidently hope that God will forgive us our sins and mistakes, and enable us to live and die in peace. — Charles Dickens

God's grace is not defined as God being forgiving to us even though we sin. Grace is when God is a source of wholeness, which makes up for my failings. My failings hurt me and others and even the planet, and God's grace to me is that my brokenness is not the final word ... it's that God makes beautiful things out of even my own shit. Grace isn't about God creating humans and flawed beings and then acting all hurt when we inevitably fail and then stepping in like the hero to grant us grace - like saying, "Oh, it's OK, I'll be the good guy and forgive you." It's God saying, "I love the world too much to let your sin define you and be the final word. I am a God who makes all things new. — Nadia Bolz-Weber

All this time, Lev ever realized what he needed. He did not need to be adored or pitied. He needed to be forgiven. Not by God, who is all forgiving. Not by people like Marcus and Pastor Dan, who would always stand by his side. He needed to be forgiven by an unforgiving world. — Neal Shusterman

First, forgive. Second, forget by choosing not to dwell on that which is forgiven and in the past. We have no right to keep in front of us what God has put behind Him. — David Jeremiah

Let us beware of the prayer for forgiveness becoming a formality: only what is really confessed is really forgiven. Let us in faith accept the forgiveness as promised: as a spiritual reality, an actual transaction between God and us, it is the entrance into all the Father's love and all the privileges of children. Such forgiveness, as a living experience, is impossible without a forgiving spirit to others: as forgiven expresses the heavenward, so forgiving the earthward, relation of God's child. In each prayer to the Father I must be able to say that I know of no one whom I do not heartily love. 'And — Andrew Murray

Whether we're forgiving our parents or someone else or ourselves, the laws of mind remain the same. As we love, we shall be released from pain and as we deny love, we shall remain in pain. Each of us have different fears and different manifestations of fear, but all of us are saved by the same technique: The call to God to save our lives by salvaging our minds. 'Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For love is the kingdom and love is the glory and love is the power, forever and forever. — Marianne Williamson

Forgiving other people who have wronged us or hurt us or embarrassed us is not easy. In fact, sometimes it seems impossible. But that is what God did for us and what He asks us to do for others. — Korie Robertson

The bad news that we are all guilty is met with the best news that God loves and forgives guilty people. — Tullian Tchividjian

God will forgive you if you forgive others. Forgiving those who cause offence or injury is often exceedingly difficult. And yet, forgiveness is one of the most beautiful and important teachings of Jesus Christ. It is central to the gospel because, without it, you can't go to heaven. — Patrick Madrid

We need to be kinder with one another, more gentle and forgiving. We need to be slower to anger and more prompt to help. We need to extend the hand of friendship and resist the hand of retribution. In short, we need to love one another with the pure love of Christ, with genuine charity and compassion and, if necessary, shared suffering, for that is the way God loves us. — Howard W. Hunter

Are you capable of forgiving and loving God even when you have found out that He is not perfect, even when He has let you down and disappointed you by permitting bad luck and sickness and cruelty in His world, and permitting some of those things to happen to you? Can you learn to love and forgive Him despite His limitations, as Job does, and as you once learned to forgive and love your parents even though they were not as wise, as strong, or as perfect as you needed them to be? — Harold S. Kushner

This is a book about worshiping the true God and letting the true God act in us. It tells us as plainly as possible that the true God is a God who cannot stop giving and forgiving, and that our knowledge of this true God is utterly bound up with our willingness to receive from the hand of God the liberty to give and forgive. — Miroslav Volf

If I am able to look at the world with the eyes of God's love and discover that God's vision is not that of a stereotypical landowner or patriarch but rather that of an all-giving and forgiving father who does not measure out his love to his children according to how well they behave, then I quickly see that my only true response can be deep gratitude. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

Judgment is not the last word; it is never the last word. Judgment is necessary because of centuries of hardheartedness; its proper work is to open our hearts to the reality beyond ourselves, to crack the carapace of self-sufficiency so that we can experience the inrushing grace of the healing, merciful, forgiving God. — Eugene H. Peterson

God is the original, master forgiver. Each time we grope our reluctant way through the minor miracle of forgiving, we are imitating his style. I am not at all sure that any of us would have had imagination enough to see the possibilities in this way to heal the wrongs of this life had he not done it first. — Lewis B. Smedes

But the human spirit is resilient. God made us so. He gave us the ability to forgive. To leave our past behind. To look forward instead of back. — Elizabeth Smart

In a recent interview, General Norman Schwartzkof was asked if he thought there was room for forgiveness toward the people who have harboured and abetted the terrorists who perpetrated the 9/11 attacks on America. His answer ... I believe that forgiving them is God's function. Our job is simply to arrange the meeting. — Norman Schwarzkopf

That your enemies have been created is God's doing; that they hate you and wish to ruin you is their own doing. What should you say about them in your mind? "Lord be merciful to them, forgive them their sins, put the fear of God in them, change them!" You are loving in them not what they are, but what you would have them to become. — Saint Augustine

If a person has done wrong, is conscious of what he has done and does not say sorry, I ask God to take him into account. I forgive him, but he does not receive that forgiveness, he is closed to forgiveness. We must forgive, because we were all forgiven. It is another thing to receive that forgiveness. — Pope Francis

If you feel you can't forgive, ask God to penetrate your unforgiveness with His love. When we have to do the impossible, God says that the way it happens is "not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit" (Zechariah 4:6). This means that certain things will not be accomplished by human strength, but only by the power of God. The Holy Spirit will enable us to forgive even the unforgivable. — Stormie O'martian

You think God will never forgive you, but the only God is beauty and beauty always forgives. It forgives with its infinite indifference. — Glen Duncan

Even the God of the New Testament is not as forgiving as the consumer credit system. — Neal Stephenson

O God, if there is a God, forgive him his sins, if there is such a thing as sin, — Evelyn Waugh

I have a lot of trouble forgiving myself for being so dumb ... But yes, of course, the big generous compassionate view that you should take of yourself and of all events is: what a glorious circus train this has been, and what a wonderful messy parade, and all of those steps took me here, where I precisely need to be now, so God bless it. — Elizabeth Gilbert

Those who progress are those who understand that God's highest purpose for the Cross was not merely to forgive us of sin. It was so that, by forgiving us on the basis of Christ's blood, He could invite us back into an intimate family relationship with Him, our heavenly Father. John 1:12 says, "But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name."This legal standing of relationship to God as His sons and daughters is precisely what gives us an inheritance. — Bill Johnson

The difference between justice and forgiveness: To be just is to condemn the fault and, because of the fault, to condemn the doer as well. To forgive is to condemn the fault but to spare the doer. That's what the forgiving God does. — Miroslav Volf

The Bible doesn't tell you that he abounds in anger, but it is quick to reassure you that he is abounding in love. Be thankful today that God is not like us, because if he were, you and I would be damned. Be thankful that he is incredibly patient and eternally kind. Be thankful that he is tender, gentle, and gracious. Be thankful that he does not treat you as your sins deserve. Be thankful that because of the work of Jesus, he will respond to you with lovingkindness even on your worst day. "The LORD is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression" (Num. 14:18). — Paul David Tripp

It is vain for you to expect, it is impudent for you to ask of God forgiveness on your own behalf, if you refuse to exercise this forgiving temper with respect to others. — Benjamin Hoadly

I believe that forgiving them is god's function, our job is to arrange the meeting. — Norman Schwarzkopf

They say that when god was in Jerusalem he forgave his murderers, but now he will not forgive an honest man for differing with him on the subject of the Trinity. They say that God says to me, "Forgive your enemies." I say, "I do;" but he says, "I will damn mine." God should be consistent. If he wants me to forgive my enemies he should forgive his. I am asked to forgive enemies who can hurt me. God is only asked to forgive enemies who cannot hurt him. He certainly ought to be as generous as he asks us to be. — Robert Green Ingersoll

In Christianity, it's very clear that the god we worship is equal to love. The bible says, 'God is love'. The god we worship was sacrificed, crucified on the cross, tortured, spit on, and was still forgiving. This is our highest example. — Mosab Hassan Yousef

Oh! Almighty and Everlasting God, Creator of Heaven, Earth and the Universe: Help me to be, to think, to act what is right, because it is right; make me truthful, honest and honorable in all things; make me intellectually honest for the sake of right and honor and without thought of reward to me. Give me the ability to be charitable, forgiving and patient with my fellowmen - help me to understand their motives and their shortcomings - even as Thou understandest mine! Amen, Amen, Amen. Say — David McCullough

The community of the saints is not an "ideal" community consisting of perfect and sinless men and women, where there is no need of further repentance. No, it is a community which proves that it is worthy of the gospel of forgiveness by constantly and sincerely proclaiming God's forgiveness ... Sanctification means driving out the world from the Church as well as separating the Church from the world. But the purpose of such discipline is not to establish a community of the perfect, but a community consisting of men who really live under the forgiving mercy of God. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. Jesus always seems to be pairing God's forgiveness of us with our forgiveness of others. But why? Growing up, I thought it was a way of guilting us into forgiving others, like Jesus was saying, Hey, I died for you and you can't even be nice to your little brother? As though God can get us to do the right thing if God can just make us feel bad about how much we owe God. But that is not the God I see in Jesus Christ. That is a manipulative mother. — Nadia Bolz-Weber

The meaning of the story is found in every detail, as well as in the broad narrative. The pain and tears of all the years were met together on Calvary. The sorrow of heaven joined with the anguish of earth; the forgiving love stored up in God's future was poured out into the present; the voices that echo in a million human hearts, crying for justice, longing for spirituality, eager for relationship, yearning for beauty, drew themselves together into a final scream of desolation. — N. T. Wright

God is constant. Always forgiving. Always loving. Never changing. — Jefferson Bethke

When a person is carrying their sin, it can be quite a load ... I don't know what else to do with your sin but confess and ask God to forgive it. — Johnny Hunt

I don't think there's a petty system of heaven and hell. The love of God is much more forgiving. I'm not a believer in a wrathful God at all. — Susan Sarandon

"He passed over his fall, and appointed him first of the Apostles; wherefore He said: ' 'Simon, Simon,' etc. (in Ps. cxxix. 2). God allowed him to fall, because He meant to make him ruler over the whole world, that, remembering his own fall, he might forgive those who should slip in the future. And that what I have said is no guess, listen to Christ Himself saying: 'Simon, Simon, etc.'" — Saint John Chrysostom

This Universe is made by God by one universal rule: everybody has a standard of birth, growth, and death, except man. God is extremely forgiving, but if you do not acknowledge what you have, in gratitude, you will never have more, and if you care to get it, something will be lost. — Harbhajan Singh Yogi

You know, Sage, Jesus didn't tell us to forgive everyone. He said turn the other cheek, but only if you the one who was hit. Even the Lord's Prayer says it loud and clear: Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. Not others. What Jesus challenges us to do is to let go of the wrong done to you personally, not the wrong done to someone else. But most Christians incorrectly assume that this means that being a good christian means forgiving all sins, and the sinners. — Jodi Picoult

The Ventoux is a god of Evil, to which sacrifices must be made. It never forgives weakness and extracts an unfair tribute of suffering. — Roland Barthes

Just deciding to forgive isn't enough because willpower alone won't work - we need divine strength from God. As He gives us the strength, we need to pray for our enemies and bless them. Praying for those who have hurt us is vital to successfully forgiving them. — Joyce Meyer

Let us not close our hearts, let us not lose confidence, let us never give up: there are no situations which God cannot change, there is no sin which he cannot forgive if only we open ourselves to him. — Pope Francis