One of the most difficult things in life is to forgive. My experience in the ministries we were involved with, most Christians suffer from un-forgiveness. It is hard to believe but that is the truth. The emotions that surges in us when we have been unfairly treated, makes us want retribution. You want to get back at the person. Although this is a natural tendency, it does not satisfy.
• Retribution, if achievable, never gives you the satisfaction that you want.
• It does not heal the pain. It does not minimize the feelings that you have and every time that you think about the situation, the same bad feelings are experienced.
• Without healing, the person that you battle to forgive continues to control your life. You will avoid that person as far as its possible. He/she therefore controls you! That is not what God wants for you. He wants us to be in control of our lives.
• The person that had unfairly treated you does not necessarily know or does not care that he/she has hurt you. A lot of the times people inadvertently offend you or it may be a lack of understanding each other that creates the animosity.
• Worst of all, it affects your relationship with the Lord, your spiritual growth and your relationship with other people. It tends to be like cancer. It will eventually consume you and you will find that you cannot focus on your relationship with God. I talk about personal experience.
Someone once said that to harbor a grudge against someone because of what he/she has done against you, is likened to you drinking poison and hoping that the other person will die!
Part of the problem with forgiveness is that people do not understand what forgiveness is. Let first look at what forgiveness is not:
• It does not mean that you were not hurt and that it does not matter. You have to acknowledge that before healing can take place.
• It does not mean that by forgiving, you say what the person did is ok. It is not ok. It is in fact wrong to be treated in such a way. Retribution in effect makes you act in the same sinful way.
• It does not mean that you need to tolerate the sin. You have every right to put a stop to sin by laying down Biblical guidelines for a relationship to continue. God does not expect you to be someone’s floor mat to be abused as they like.
• It does not mean that you have to keep quiet about is. You are entitled to raise the issue with the offending party, but with the idea to resolve the issues in a Godly way. You have the right to draw a line in the sand and if it happens again, you are entitled to disassociate yourself from that person. God wants us to have people that build us up spiritually. That is real friends.
• It does not mean that your relationship with that person should be restored to the same level as before. In fact it may not be a healthy relationship for you and you may have to end the relationship. God does not expect you to be in an abusive relationship.
• There is a saying: Forgive and forget. That is not possible. It may be of benefit to remember to ensure that this does not happen to you again or that you must avoid from allowing the person to continue the abuse.
What is forgiveness?
• Forgiveness is a choice that you make. You make the decision that you will never hold the deed against the person again. That is what God does to us. God does not forget. He merely makes the decision that your past sins will not be held against you when you come to Christ. If you make the choice, it is God’s work to create in you the actual forgiveness in your heart. My experience is that when you make the decision to forgive, although you don’t know how to do it, God will create in you a new heart of forgiveness. This is and stays a mystery to me. But then God’s working in our lives is a mystery.
• It is a miraculous working of the Holy Spirit in your life. It is not normal to forgive. It is not normal to love such people. But if you make the decision and ask God, through His Holy Spirit, to change your mind and change your heart, forgiveness will happen. Sometimes this is instantaneous, sometimes it takes a bit of time, especially if the hurt was great and from a friend you trusted. You may have to work through the pain with the Lord before you can make the decision. Just don’t make a false declaration to the Lord. Forgiveness will not happen and the bondage on your life will not be broken.
• Forgiveness is giving to another person mercy and grace. Mercy is to forgive. Grace is to give him/her what they do not deserve. That is what God did for you and me on the cross. We deserve death, yet God has forgiven us (mercy) and gives us eternal life by grace. Something we do not deserve. We are extending the same grace to the people that have offended us. Jesus speaks about it in the parable in Matt. 18.
• Forgiveness shows your trust in God and leaves the judgement, if there is to be any judgement, to God. He knows best. We have no right to judge other people. We have also sinned. In fact all of us have sinned. It is only by grace if we have not done the same to someone else.
Just a warning: Be aware that the evil one will bring to your memory the incident. The aim is to make you believe that you may not have forgiven. Stand firm in your knowledge and he will flee from you.
If we refuse to forgive, we are actually doing a sin. Not against the person, but what we are saying to God that God’s grace is not big enough for us to in turn forgive others. It is an act of ungratefulness. In fact we are judging the other person. We have no right to judge. We need to be careful that when we judge people that the same judgment does not fall on us.
Jesus wrote a parable in the Bible to address this very issue. The rich man was forgiven much but he in turn was not willing to forgive the person that owed him a little money. That is a very ominous warning from God. Think also about the Lord’s Prayer. “Forgive our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us”. It is almost a pre-requisite for us that know the Lord, to forgive. God commands us to forgive. So let us take a step in faith and start forgiving.
What does forgiveness bring us?
• It restores your relationship with God. That I believe is the greatest result of forgiveness. Un-forgiveness builds a wall between you and God. Forgiveness breaks it down.
• It frees you from the bondage of un-forgiveness. Un-forgiveness is like a cancer growth that will destroy your life. You will be so obsessed with it so that it will dominate your life.
• Joy and peace that cannot be described being free from this bondage and that you have no grudges against anybody. It sets you free.
• Being healed from the pain of what other people did against you. It does take time but you will remember the incident in a different light. Eventually, after a time of restoration, you will even be able to witness of God’s grace in your life. You will be able to talk about it without the pain.
• It can restore personal relationships (where appropriate), especially where there was a misunderstanding that caused the pain. It may even make that relationship better than what it was before.
• You are in control of your life again, and that is what God wants in your life. You are no longer scared of being in that person’s presence. You no longer have to avoid the person. You no longer fear to be in the presence of the person.
• Once you have forgiven once and experienced the freedom, God makes it a lot easier the second time you need to forgive. The pain seems to be less and the process to get to the decision to forgive is a lot quicker.
We have a saying in Freedom in Christ: SET THE CAPTIVE FREE TO FIND OUT THAT YOU WERE THE CAPTIVE. That is very true.
How do you know that you have forgiven someone totally?
This question has been asked to me many times. The fear that we have is that we have only forgiven the person with our minds and not our hearts. I believe there are two actions in your life that will confirm that the forgiveness is real.
• If you can pray for the person’s soul with absolute passion and you are able to bless him/her in your prayer.
• When you meet them again that you have no feeling of animosity against the person. In fact that you will have a feeling of love for that person. Agape love. That is an incredible experience.
I have had many major cases of forgiveness in my life. They dramatically altered my view about forgiveness and I now forgive a lot easier than in the past. Here are only two of them:
• My ex son-in-law when he divorced my daughter after an affair with her best friend. We forgave him immediate after the divorce. I always wondered what emotions I would have if I ever met him again. I saw him a few years later and I had the joy of feeling no animosity. In fact I am in contact with him quite regularly and also have a good relationship with his now wife who was the best friend of my daughter.
• I had a boss that treated me very badly and as a result it cost me a senior position in the company and bonuses. I had even written a 3 page unfair labor practice letter against him. It so consumed my life that I could not focus on God. My relationship with Him was in tatters. It got so bad that I cried to God that I wanted this to end. I wanted to focus on Him and not the situation. I went for my usual lunchtime power nap with that prayer in my heart and woke up about 30 minutes later with love in my heart for my boss. I worked harder for him after this incident and I started praying for him. HR wanted me to go ahead with the unfair labor practices. I chose not to. I had made the decision to never hold his actions against him. I no longer was seeking revenge. I still have the letter in my possession. It is a constant reminder to me what grace God bestowed upon me to be able to forgive. That is awesome. At the end of my career, he came to me and said; “You have no idea how you impacted my life.” I am not saying this to boast. I did not even know that my love for him would impact him. All I did was to be obedient to God. All the glory to the Lord.
If you have un-forgiveness in your heart, take the risk, make the choice to forgive. You will never regret it and you will never be the same again!
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