The holiday season is here. Often, thoughts about family gatherings foster pain and hurt from the past. I encourage you to let go and let God handle past offenses.

Refuse to allow those memories to ruin your holiday season. Jesus is the reason for the season, so decide to focus on celebrating all that He has done. Be a loving, gracious, and sincere giver. More importantly, ask God to help you forgive those who have hurt you. Remember, forgiveness is a decision, not a feeling.

Your first step is to make the quality decision to forgive.

When forgiving others, you shouldn’t require them to apologize or make amends beforehand. This defeats the purpose. Your restoration and healing comes when you decide to receive God’s grace to walk in love with the person who hurt you. His or her response shouldn’t be your concern. Your business is to forgive, let go, let God take over, and love that individual.

Love is an action word and can be expressed in many ways. It is the most powerful seed you can sow into someone’s life. Jesus said to love your enemies and do good to people who hate you, and that you should pray for those who despitefully use you (Luke 6:27, 28).

Jesus wants you to understand the importance of demonstrating love to someone who does not show love in return. When you release the love of God into the lives of others, God is released, because God is love.

I call this the do-good seed, which is the action of love you extend to another person who has done wrong and doesn’t deserve your goodness.

If someone has done something to offend you, pray for the person and follow the Holy Spirit’s lead. God may lead you to add that person to your Christmas shopping list this year! Remember, doing something good for someone who has hurt you is not a demonstration of weakness. It demonstrates the power of God that is within you. Only God can empower you to truly love your enemies.  

When it comes to sowing, God is not requiring anything of you that He hasn’t already done. When He saw mankind in a sinful state, He sowed the ultimate do-good seed—Jesus—as an expression of His love for mankind. Even though humanity deserved eternal damnation, God gave His most valuable and precious possession. As a result, He has reaped a harvest of millions of sons and daughters!

Love is the key to experiencing true fulfillment, and should be the motivation behind every seed you sow.