You look a bit like your dad?

Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.
http://bible.us/Eph4.32.NLT

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When I was boy my father tired of the fighting and bickering in which my brother and me always seemed to be embroiled. So he sat us down and told us we had to memorize this verse. It must say it stuck with me.

As I grew older I realised with new significance the deeper meaning of this verse. Rather than simply instructing Christians to be mind and forgiving this verse was pointing to a source. In fact further I believe it suggests an empowering equation.

Have you been forgiven? Do you see your need for forgiveness? Do you understand how God forgave you? Do you grasp the cost?

See you desperately need forgiving. And at great cost, but with great generosity God forgave you. The Christian who knows they have been forgiven by God has every train to forgive others.

In God's thinking it would be absurd to have truly been forgiven the massive unrelenting burdensome debilitating debt of sin we have so graciously been relieved of and then somehow to not extend that to others.
In passing along this priceless gift of forgiveness we then become like God. I'd go so far as to say if you act like God in this way you are revealing a bit of a family resemblance.

So did it work, well it surely set me on the right path and has been one of my most profound theology lessons in life.

Forgive someone today, while you still can!