Forgiving does not erase the bitter past. A healed memory is not a deleted memory. Instead, forgiving what we cannot forget creates a new way to remember. We change the memory of our past into a hope for our future.
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Quotes by Lewis B. Smedes
Explore 25 verified and sourced quotes attributed to Lewis B. Smedes. Open any quote for its dedicated page, source details and related topics.
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Selected quotes by Lewis B. Smedes
It takes one person to forgive, it takes two people to be reunited.
To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.
You will know that forgiveness has begun when you recall those who hurt you and feel the power to wish them well.
Forgiving is love's toughest work, and love's biggest risk.
Our sense of fairness tells us that people should pay for the wrong they do.
When we forgive evil we do not excuse it, we do not tolerate it, we do not smother it. We look the evil full in the face, call it what it is, let its horror shock and stun and enrage us, and only then do we forgive it.
Seeing reality for what it is is what we call discernment. The work of discernment is very hard.
What is a disloyal act? A person is disloyal if he treats you as a stranger when, in fact, he belongs to you as a friend or partner. Each of us is bound to some special others by the invisible fibers of loyalty.
Any lazy or biased fool can have opinions; making judgments is the hard work of responsible and compassionate people.
God does not give us salvation because we believe. Our believing is only the normal way of receiving the salvation he freely gives.
God is not a doormat, nor should anyone else be a doormat.
No one really forgives unless he has been hurt.
Nothing enables us to forgive like knowing in our hearts that we have been forgiven.
Promise keeping is a powerful means of grace in a time when people hardly depend on each other to remember and live by their word.
Some people have loved ones they will not forsake, even though they are a pain in the neck.
The blood of Christ covers all of our sins, but each of us must do personal business with God in order to experience his forgiveness.
The God who has the whole world in his hands has grace for the whole world in his heart.
The lies we tell ourselves are the most subtle of all lies.
We are anxious in the face of our unchangeable past; we long to recreate segments of our private histories, but we are stuck with them.
At the cross, God was punishing Jesus for the sins of the world. God's justice required a penalty from sinners, and in his unspeakable love, he paid the penalty himself in the person of his crucified Son.
In a sinful world, no community can exist for long where nobody is ever held accountable: no teacher would grade a student's performance; no citizen would sit on a jury or call a failed leader to account.
No doubt, corporate CEOs who lie to their shareholders and politicians who lie to their public know and believe intellectually that lying is immoral. Why then do they lie? They lie to others because they first lie to themselves.
Restorative justice is not a replacement of retributive justice, but a complement. It seeks the rehabilitation of the wrongdoer and the repair of the victim's injury.
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