Virtue-Mercy "Forgiveness does not imply that an individual has “forgotten” all memories of
the abuse, that he or she condones the behavior or absolves the perpetrator
of responsibility, or that he or she must become reconciled with the
perpetrator, particularly if there is the possibility of further abuse. What
forgiveness does imply is that an individual has relinquished feelings of hate
or bitterness toward another, has placed the matter in the Lord’s hands, and
has enabled Him to operate more fully in his or her life. In forgiving, an
individual frees himself from the perpetrator and is therefore better able to
progress." Richard G. Scott
The Law Forgiveness from God
1. The condition for forgiveness from God is repentance which is a
confession of guilt and a forsaking of that guilty behaviour.
 Behold, he who has repented of his sins, the same is forgiven, and I, the
Lord, remember them no more. By this ye may know if a man repenteth of
his sins—behold, he will confess them and forsake them.” (D&C 58 42-43).
2. The only way that man can be forgiven from God is through the atonement of Jesus Christ.
 “There is no other way nor means whereby man can be saved, only through the atoning blood of Jesus Christ, who
shall come, yea, remember that he cometh to redeem the world.” (Hel 5.9)
3. Man cannot be forgiven in his sins but only from his sins.
 “He said unto him that the Lord surely should come to redeem his people, but that he should not come to redeem
them in their sins, but to redeem them from their sins.
4. Repentance is the key to forgiveness from God.
 “And he hath power given unto him from the Father to redeem them from their sins because of repentance.” (Hel.
5.10-11.)
4. The Lord loves to forgive his children, he has no pleasure in those that die spiritually.
 For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God. wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye.
(Ezekiel 18.32)
5. The Lord is willing to abundantly pardon those who sincerely repent.
 “Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near.
“Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts. and let him return unto the Lord, and he
will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. (Isa. 55. 6-7)
 “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord. though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as
snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” (Isa. 1.18.)
6. Those who commit adultery but repent with all their hearts and forsake it shall be forgiven.

“He that has committed adultery and repents with all his heart, and forsaketh it, and doeth it no more, thou shalt
forgive.” (D&C 42.25.)
7. The Atonement will provide restitution when you cannot.
 “There are times you cannot mend that which you have broken. Perhaps the offense was long ago, or the injured
refused your penance. Perhaps the damage was so severe that you cannot fix it no matter how desperately you
want to. Your repentance cannot be accepted unless there is restitution. If you cannot undo what you have done,
you are trapped. It is easy to understand how helpless and hopeless you then feel and why you might want to give
up, just as Alma did. The thought that rescued Alma, when he acted upon it, is this. Restoring what you cannot
restore, healing the wound you cannot heal, fixing that which you broke and you cannot fix is the very purpose of
the Atonement of Christ.” (Boyd K. Packer- The Brilliant Morning of Forgiveness)
8. We are required to forgive ourselves.
 May I add a footnote here? When the Lord requires that we forgive all men, that includes forgiving ourselves.
Sometimes, of all the people in the world, the one who is the hardest to forgive—as well as perhaps the one who is
most in need of our forgiveness—is the person looking back at us in the mirror. (The Merciful Obtain MercyDieter F. Uchtdorf)
Forgiving Others
1. The Lord requires us to forgive all men.
“I, the Lord, will forgive whom I will forgive, but of you it is required to forgive all men.
“And ye ought to say in your hearts—let God judge between me and thee, and reward thee according to thy deeds”
(D&C 64.8-11).
2. The Past is to be learned from but not lived in.
 So, as a new year starts and we try to benefit from a proper view of what has gone before, I plead with you not to
dwell on days now gone, nor to yearn vainly for yesterdays, however good those yesterdays may have been. The
past is to be learned from but not lived in. (Remember Lott's Wife- Jeffrey R. Holland)
3. We must forgive and forget earlier mistakes in life of ourselves and others. We are called to cease and desist
from this kind of wallowing in the past.
 At this point, let me pause and add a lesson that applies both in your own life and also in the lives of others. There
is something in us, at least in too many of us, that particularly fails to forgive and forget earlier mistakes in life—
either mistakes we ourselves have made or the mistakes of others. That is not good. It is not Christian. It stands in
terrible opposition to the grandeur and majesty of the Atonement of Christ. To be tied to earlier mistakes—our
own or other people’s—is the worst kind of wallowing in the past from which we are called to cease and desist.
(Remember Lott's Wife- Jeffrey R. Holland)
4. When something has been repented of it is not right to go back and open up a wound the Son of God died
trying to heal.
 When something is over and done with, when it has been repented of as fully as it can be repented of, when life
has moved on as it should and a lot of other wonderfully good things have happened since then, it is not right to go
back and open up some ancient wound that the Son of God Himself died trying to heal. (Remember Lott's WifeJeffrey R. Holland)
5. We are to let people grow, we are to be charitable and leave what’s buried alone.
 Let people repent. Let people grow. Believe that people can change and improve. Is that faith? Yes! Is that hope?
Yes! Is it charity? Yes! Above all, it is charity, the pure love of Christ. If something is buried in the past, leave it
buried. (Remember Lott's Wife- Jeffrey R. Holland)
6. We are to remember just enough to avoid repeating a mistake but we are to forget.
 Now, like the Anti-Nephi-Lehies of the Book of Mormon, bury your weapons of war, and leave them buried.
Forgive, and do that which is harder than to forgive. Forget. And when it comes to mind again, forget it again.
You can remember just enough to avoid repeating the mistake, but then put the rest of it all on the dung heap Paul
spoke of to those Philippians. Dismiss the destructive and keep dismissing it until the beauty of the Atonement of
Christ has revealed to you your bright future and the bright future of your family and your friends and your
neighbors. (Remember Lott's Wife- Jeffrey R. Holland)
Blessings
1. If we are merciful God will judge us according to mercy.
 “Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged. and with what measure ye
mete, it shall be measured to you again.” (Matthew 7:1-2)
 "Blessed are the merciful; for they shall obtain mercy. (Matthew 5:7)
Punishments
1. Those who cannot forgive others will be afflicted and sorely chastened.
 My disciples, in days of old, sought occasion against one another and forgave not one another in their hearts; and
for this evil they were afflicted and sorely chastened.
2. He who does not forgive commits the greater sin and is condemned before God.
 “Wherefore, I say unto you, that ye ought to forgive one another; for he that forgiveth not his brother his
trespasses standeth condemned before the Lord; for there remaineth in him the greater sin. (D&C 64: 8-11)
 This includes ourselves: The provision, of course, is that repentance has to be sincere, but when it is and when
honest effort is being made to progress, we are guilty of the greater sin if we keep remembering and recalling and
rebashing someone with their earlier mistakes—and that “someone” might be ourselves. We can be so hard on
ourselves, often much more so than with others! (Remember Lott's Wife- Jeffrey R. Holland)
3. If we do not forgive others the Lord will not forgive us.
 “For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
“But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (Matt. 6.14-15).
4. If we are not merciful God will use that standard to judge us.
 “Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged. and with what measure ye
mete, it shall be measured to you again.” (Matthew 7:1-2)
5. Dwelling on past mistakes is not right but can lead to the destruction of families and neighbourhoods.
 Such dwelling on past lives, including past mistakes, is just not right! It is not the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is
worse than Miniver Cheevy, and in some ways worse than Lot’s wife, because at least there he and she were only
destroying themselves. In these cases of marriage and
family and wards and apartments and neighbourhoods,
we can end up destroying so many, many others. Perhaps at this beginning of a new year there is no greater
requirement for us than to do as the Lord Himself said He does. “Behold, he who has repented of his sins, the
same is forgiven, and I, the Lord, remember them no more” (D&C 58.42). (Remember Lott's Wife- Jeffrey R.
Holland)
Beliefs
1. God doesn’t care about where you have been but where you are and are willing to go.
 God doesn’t care nearly as much about where you have been as He does about where you are and, with His help,
where you are willing to go. (Remember Lott's Wife- Jeffrey R. Holland)
2. The Laborers in the Vineyard parable is about the mercy of God. He rewards those who work late in the day
just as much as those who do so earlier. (The Laborers in the Vineyard-Jeffrey R. Holland)
3. Forgiving Abusers. "Forgiveness does not imply that an individual has “forgotten” all memories of the abuse, that
he or she condones the behavior or absolves the perpetrator of responsibility, or that he or she must become reconciled
with the perpetrator, particularly if there is the possibility of further abuse. What forgiveness does imply is that an
individual has relinquished feelings of hate or bitterness toward another, has placed the matter in the Lord’s hands, and
has enabled Him to operate more fully in his or her life. In forgiving, an individual frees himself from the perpetrator
and is therefore better able to progress." Richard G. Scott- Healing the wounds of sexual abuse.
4. Jesus has already suffered for the sins of those who have wronged us. No sin ever escapes punishment but
repentance makes Jesus sacrifice active in our lives.
I recently received a letter from a woman who reported having endured great suffering in her life. A terrible wrong,
which she did not identify but alluded to, had been committed against her. She admitted that she struggled with
feelings of great bitterness. In her anger, she mentally cried out, “Someone must pay for this terrible wrong.” In
this extreme moment of sorrow and questioning, she wrote that there came into her heart an immediate reply:
“Someone already has paid.”
If we are not aware of what the Savior’s sacrifice can do for us, we may go through life carrying regrets that we have
done something that was not right or offended someone. The guilt that accompanies mistakes can be washed away.
If we seek to understand His Atonement, we will come to a deep reverence for the Lord Jesus Christ, His earthly
ministry, and His divine mission as our Savior. (Boyd K. Packer-The Reason for our Hope)
Quotes
1. “To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.” ---Lewis B. Smede
2. “When a deep injury is done us, we never recover until we forgive” –Alan Palton
3. “When you hold resentment toward another, you are bound to that person or condition by an emotional link that is
stronger than steel. Forgiveness is the only way to dissolve that link and get free.” ---Catherine Ponder
4. “Forgive or relive”---Anon
5. “Forgiveness is the economy of the heart... forgiveness saves the expense of anger, the cost of hatred, the waste of
spirits.”---Hannah Moore
6. “A spirit of forgiveness and an attitude of love and compassion toward those who may have wronged us is of the
very essence of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Each of us has need of this spirit. The whole world has need of it. The
Lord taught it. He exemplified it as none other has
exemplified it. In the time of his agony on the cross of
Calvary, with vile and hateful accusers before him—those who had brought him to this terrible crucifixion—he
cried out, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Luke 23.34). None of us is called on to forgive
so generously, but each of us is under a divinely spoken obligation to reach out with pardon and mercy.” (Of you it
is required to forgive-Gordon B. Hinckley)
Synonyms
1. Mercy: compassionate or kindly forbearance shown toward an offender, an enemy, or other person in one's power;
compassion, pity, or benevolence.
 “The quality of mercy is not strained; It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath. It is
twice blessed- It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes.”---William Shakespeare
2. Absolution: Act of absolving; a freeing from blame or guilt; release from consequences, obligations, or penalties.
3. Clemency: The quality of being clement; disposition to show forbearance, compassion, or forgiveness in judging or
punishing; leniency; mercy.
4. Exoneration: to clear, as of an accusation; free from guilt or blame; exculpate. He was exonerated from the
accusation of cheating.
5 .Grace: mercy; clemency; pardon. An act of grace.
Antonyms.
1. Cruelty. enjoying the pain or distress of others; willfully or knowingly causing pain or distress to others.
2. Relentlessness. That does not relent; unyieldingly severe, strict, or harsh.
3. Depravity. Moral corruption or degradation.
4. Callousness. Insensitive; indifferent; unsympathetic.
5. Mercilessness. Without mercy; having or showing no mercy.
6. Maliciousness. Desire to inflict injury, harm, or suffering on another, either because of a hostile impulse or out of
deep-seated meanness.
7. Ruthlessness. Without pity or compassion.
8. Viciousness. Unpleasantly severe; given or readily disposed to evil.
9. Wickedness. Evil by nature and in practice.