Forgiveness is easier when we are the ones in need of it. We want to be forgiven but we don't like to forgive. No one likes to be the "guilty" person in the hot seat but we sometimes find delight in holding other people in their seat of shame. When we ask God for forgiveness, we receive this undeserving gift of having our sins washed away. However, we have a hard time repackaging this gift when other undeserving people are in need of it. Somehow, we treat forgiveness as a selfish condition that only applies to ourselves. Revenge and full payment for mistakes is what we offer other people by means of harboring unforgiveness. 

Jesus teaches us in the Lord's Prayer, that in the same breath we use to ask for forgiveness, we must offer forgiveness to others. We should not turn forgiveness into a one way street. Countless times, we travel down this street in our need to be forgiven but we don't let other people travel down this same road.  

The story of the woman in John 8 beautifully depicts how we tend to handle the sin of others versus our own sin. The Pharisees caught a woman in the act of adultery and were ready to kill her according to the law. Jesus responds in verse 7,

“So when they continued asking Him, He raised Himself up and said to them, “He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first.”  And again He stooped down and wrote on the ground. Then those who heard it, being convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, beginning with the oldest even to the last. And Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.”

Jesus challenged them to look at their own sin and their own sin convicted them. Notice, Jesus never justified the woman’s sin but He had His own way of dealing with it. He forgave her and told her to “go and sin no more”. The Pharisees had their own way of dealing with her and their way was death. We may not carry physical stones but holding onto unforgiveness is our way of dealing with the sins of others. We cannot physical kill them with stones but unforgiveness is a carnal form of revenge used to inflict hurt and pain.

It takes great humility to forgive and allow the Lord to deal with the hearts of people. Truth is, God may not handle things how you want them handled. The Pharisees wanted her dead. I can only imagine their thoughts if they saw here walking around the next day.

Forgiveness is not easy by any means but we have to pray for God to soften our hearts. We must remember our own need for forgiveness and do unto others as we would want them to do unto us. The same stones we throw could have been thrown at us but while we were yet sinners, God sent His son to die for us.