Day 8 Read: Luke 23:33—34
        
        “I’ll forgive my neighbor——
 
             after he apologizes!
        
             after he dies before me in repentance!”
 
         That is not Christian forgiveness.
        
        Christian forgiveness
        
                 is to die first....       
                 die to your offended pride and      
                 forgive him anyway for Christ’s sake.
 
         Jesus did not say,
        
                 “I’ll forgive them when they apologize!”
        
                 “I’ll absolve them when they crawl!“
 
         The first words He spoke when they lifted Him up
         on the cross were: FATHER FORGIVE THEM FOR THEY
          KNOW NOT WHAT THEY DO.  
      
         If Jesus died forgiving those who sneered in His
         face to the last, by what “righteousness” dare
         you, His servant, hold yourself aloof from your
         neighbor until he says, “Forgive me”?
        
        “When I was a child I spoke as a child, I under-
         stood as a child, I thought as a child; but when
         I became a man, I put away childish things.”
        
             O Spirit of God, enable us to put away
             our childish self-styled “love” and to
             walk even as He walked.