Read:  Colossians 3:12-17

Have you been carrying any heavy loads around recently?  I’m not talking about physical loads, I’m speaking of those loads of guilt, unforgiveness, revenge, and grudges.  Too often we allow our emotions to get the best of us when we have been offended or wronged in some way. And too often we carry those emotions around with us like heavy loads.  Some people end up carrying them around for years. But we don’t have to.

Colossians 3 reminds us that we need to forgive like Jesus has forgiven us.  In verse 15 Paul says, “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts…” Pastor Charles Allen once told the story of when he was in the fourth grade and the principal of the school mistreated him.  It was a deliberate wrong, which the principal committed because he had fallen out with Charles’ father.

The Allens eventually moved from that town and many years had passed.  One day when Charles became a pastor and accepted his first church he heard that this principal from his grade school days was seeking a job in the local school.  Charles knew that if he told his friends on the school board about this man, they would not hire him. As he went out to get in his car to see some of the school board members he remembered verses like Colossians 3:13 that says, “Forgive one another if any of you have a grievance against someone.  Forgive as the Lord forgave you.”

Charles went back in his house and knelt down beside his bed to ask the Lord for forgiveness and to release this heavy load of revenge off of his shoulders.  The same can happen for us when we take those offenses and feelings of anger and revenge to the Lord in prayer. There is no reason for Christians to carry around heavy loads when Christ offers to lift it off of our shoulders.

Make it Personal:  What offense or grudge have you been carrying around?  Name it and take it to Jesus in prayer. He will forgive you and allow you to move on with your life in the freedom that only Jesus can offer.  Forgive as the Lord forgave you!