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" When we have been badly injured and clearly wronged, we make an instant caricature of the person who did it to us. We define him totally by the one wrong he did. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Wrong
Us
Him
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" It takes one person to forgive, it takes two people to be reunited. "
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" Common sense suggests that if no one ever judged other people, there would be no real human community. "
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" 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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" 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. "
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" To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you. "
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" 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. "
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" The God who has the whole world in his hands has grace for the whole world in his heart. "
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" 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. "
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" 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. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Son
Person
God
" Any lazy or biased fool can have opinions; making judgments is the hard work of responsible and compassionate people. "
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" Our sense of fairness tells us that people should pay for the wrong they do. "
Lewis B. Smedes
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" Some people still have causes they will not desert, even though the cause seems lost. "
Lewis B. Smedes
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Lost
People
" The lies we tell ourselves are the most subtle of all lies. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Ourselves
Most
Subtle
" Nothing enables us to forgive like knowing in our hearts that we have been forgiven. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Knowing
Nothing
Like
" 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. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Horror
Forgive
Face
" Jesus said that we should render to the state what properly belongs to the state, and though he had taxes in mind, we might reasonably infer that giving the state the job of punishing wrongdoers is one way of giving the state its due. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Mind
Taxes
Way
" No one really forgives unless he has been hurt. "
Lewis B. Smedes
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" The problem with revenge is that it never evens the score. It ties both the injured and the injurer to an escalator of pain. Both are stuck on the escalator as long as parity is demanded, and the escalator never stops. "
Lewis B. Smedes
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" God does not give us salvation because we believe. Our believing is only the normal way of receiving the salvation he freely gives. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Believing
God
Us
" My father was only thirty-one when he died of a heart attack, much too young for a father to die and leave his young wife with five rambunctious little kids to take care of. I was the youngest. Only a couple of months old when he died. "
Lewis B. Smedes
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" Forgiving is love's toughest work, and love's biggest risk. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Forgiving
Love
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" True, the apostles did not expressly say that people will be saved only if they repent, believe, and confess. But most evangelicals assume - with good reason - that this is what the apostles implied. "
Lewis B. Smedes
True
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" Nobody sees reality whole; we all need others to show us the parts of it that they see better than we do. Nobody sees reality with total accuracy; we all need others to correct our own vision. "
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Need
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Vision
" Some people have loved ones they will not forsake, even though they are a pain in the neck. "
Lewis B. Smedes
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" Our society is pluralistic. We who accept the privilege of membership in that society agree to respect the people's right to live by their own religious precepts. "
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Accept
Society
Respect
" Sometimes I like to list the strongest arguments I can find to support a point of view I think is wrong. When I have them before me, I am up against a real opponent rather than a hypothetical one that is an easy target for me to hit. "
Lewis B. Smedes
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" Our history is an inevitable component of our being. One thing only can release us from the grip of our history. That one thing is forgiveness. "
Lewis B. Smedes
History
Inevitable
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" Retributive justice did not arise from any Christian principle; almost every pre-Christian society dealt with wrongdoers by causing them pain. "
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Dealt
Christian
" As I read the New Testament, I find only one path to salvation - the path of an informed faith in Jesus Christ. "
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Faith
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" Some people still make promises and keep those they make. When they do, they help make life around them more stably human. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Help
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