“And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.” Ephesians 4:32
“Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also [do] ye.” Colossians 3:13
I’ve said this before and I’m sure I’ll say it many more times during this journey of life. If I have ever irritated, upset, angered, or enraged anyone, I apologize. It is rarely my intent to bring a person to anger and it’s never my intent to purposefully hurt anyone’s feelings. Please remember that I’m just an old sinner saved by grace. I’m going to make mistakes, hurt feelings, anger people and sin. That’s not a cop-out or excuse, its reality. We are sinners. Those of us who have accepted Christ as Lord and Savior – at that moment, we start a life long journey. We strive to give up our old life, lusts, and worldliness to embrace something profoundly better. We embrace a life of service to our Lord and the people around us. Some people are better than others at this Holy Spirit led life of service. I’m not very good at it, but every day I strive to improve. Often I fail, sometimes I do a great job, but regardless of my aptitude or lack thereof, the Christian life is still the way to go. I’m a much better man because of it, and I will never give up my Christianity. It’s just too important.
Through my research of scripture I found that in most versions of the Bible, the word apology doesn’t appear in the text. I found it in a couple of versions of the Bible that I don’t trust very much, but it doesn’t exist in most English language versions. The reason to apologize exists in several verses and I’ve listed my favorites above. An apology is very nice and should be provided when we wrong someone, but the mandate from our almighty God is to forgive, whether we are apologized to or not. That’s probably the strategic reason God didn’t include a mandate to apologize. We should strive to not put ourselves in the position to need to apologize, and if we are wronged, we should – after we calm down – just forgive those that wrong us. That’s tough but I’m pretty good at that part of Gods mandate – I forgive pretty generously, but I occasionally hurt people with my words and demeanor. So, again, if I have ever wronged you in any way, I apologize and pray that you will forgive me.
Have a blessed day!