Forgiveness

In his very entertaining book, Bible in Pocket, Gun in Hand, Ross Pahres tells about a frontier preacher who was preaching against the sin of hatred. He asked anyone who had overcome hatred to stand. One elderly man stood up. The stunned preacher asked, "You don't hate anybody?" "No sir," replied the man. The preacher remarked, "That's a wonderful testimony. Tell us why that is." The old gentlemen said, with a grin, "All the skunks who done me dirty, all them scoundrels I hated - they're all dead." It's not likely we can lose all our enemies that way. We might actually have to forgive them.

-Michael Shannon, Preaching July/August 2002