Forgiveness at the Core

 

Romans 12:17-19, NLT - Never pay back evil with more evil. Do things in such a way that everyone can see you are honorable. Do all that you can to live in peace with everyone. Dear friends, never take revenge. Leave that to the righteous anger of God. For the Scriptures say, “I will take revenge; I will pay them back,” says the Lord.

 

                For several days now, we’ve spent time dispelling many misunderstandings about forgiveness and disqualifying many imposters of forgiveness.  Forgiveness is not approval, minimization, ignoring, justification, excuse for an offense.  It is not reconciliation.  It is not justice.  It is not to be confused with healing or a restoration of trust.  It does not necessarily remove consequences for an offense.  It begins with the assumption that a wrong has been committed.  Forgiveness is always a choice that may or may not be accompanied by a particular feeling. 

With all of these pre-qualifications about forgiveness, we’re ready to get at the core of what forgiveness is. Forgiveness is the decision to enter the process of letting go of the right to punish or otherwise use the offense against the offender.  This process involves no longer allowing the offense to take up space in our heart.  It involves the determination do what is necessary to move towards healing of the wound instead of continually re-opening it with rehash after rehash of the offense.   It is a move toward restoring wholeness of heart and mind. It is move towards being more free.

Forgiveness is not for the weak or the timid.  It is hard work.  It often feels counterintuitive because we are doing something for ourselves about something that was done to us by someone else.  But as the scripture above teaches, we are also trusting that God will also do something as well.  God will take care of the offense.  So the work of forgiveness is also a decision to let God be God and not us. 

If this doesn’t sound attractive at this point, please know you are not alone.  I have not conducted any scientific surveys, but I’m quite confident more people than not do not count forgiveness as an oft-used tool in their spiritual and emotional toolbox. Tomorrow, we’ll talk about selfish reasons for learning how to forgive and why forgiveness is more practical than moral.  But for now, take stock of your spiritual and emotional toolbox.

 

Questions:  Is forgiveness a process you that you use on a regular basis to deal with the offenses others have committed against you.  When was the last time you forgave someone?

 

Prayer:  Forgiving God, we have old wounds caused by others that need healing.  Help us to see the ways we might be standing in the way of that healing by refusing to forgive.  Teach us your forgiving ways.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for the healing of divisions in our country right now.

 

Song:  Healing Begins – Tenth Avenue North

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qe1yKciSlT4

Forgiveness is a Choice

 

Matthew 18:21-22, NIV - Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?”

Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.

 

This week, we are talking about what forgiveness is and yesterday, we talked about the starting place of forgiveness is acknowledging that there was an offense.  Forgiveness is awareness.

                Next, forgiveness is a choice.  This might seem obvious to many, but I have been surprised to talk to so many people who are waiting on the moment when they feel forgiveness.  There are reasons for this, for most of us have had the experience of our feelings changing about something that happened in the past.  The intense feelings experienced when the event happen somehow fade over time.  We get new information about the event that changes our perspective.  For example, the experience of becoming a parent helped me see much of my childhood from a different perspective.  I feel differently about things that happened when I was a kid because I have now had kids of my own.  Being on the other side of that experience has caused my feelings to evolve.

                This also sometimes happens in relationship to situations that require forgiveness.  A new perspective and/or new information can help us feel more ready to forgive.  However, that change in feeling is not forgiveness.  Even with a more receptive heart, forgiveness is still a choice.  This will become more evident as we talk about other aspects of what forgiveness is, but right now, it’s important to note some other problems with seeing forgiveness as a feeling. 

                If we have to wait for a feeling to develop before we can forgive, than there is no hope for some offenses to ever be forgiven.  New information and new perspective might arise that actually intensify our feelings of anger and hurt instead of cause those feelings to subside, pushing us further away from feeling like forgiving.  We might not ever get new information or perspective.  In many, if not most cases, our feelings about the offense may never change, which leads us to our next problem with forgiveness as a feeling.

                Forgiveness is not passive.  In the passage above, Peter asks Jesus how many times he must forgive an offender.  The question itself assumes that forgiveness is a choice.  Peter wants to know how many times he must make that choice before it alright to make the different choice not to forgive a repeat offender.  Without getting into biblical numerology, let me just say that Jesus’s answer effectively means “as many times as there are offenses.”  Jesus says this because forgiveness is a choice to free oneself from the entanglement created by the sins committed against us.  It is to claim the victory that Jesus Himself has won over sin in our particular situation.  God doesn’t get entangled in our sin because God chooses to forgive it.  God never gets to the point where God says, “well, that’s it;  I’m done forgiving.”  God’s eternal “yes” to the question, “will I forgive this time?” is never negated by our propensity to keep sinning.  Jesus essentially says to Peter, “you don’t want to stay entangled with others’ sin anymore than God does.”  Forgiveness is not only always a choice; it is always the best choice. 

                Actively choosing to forgive begins to break the hold that the offenses others have committed against us have on our hearts.  It can and often does begin to change the seemingly intractable negative feelings we have about what has been done to us.  Instead of passively waiting for forgiveness to move into our emotion, we can choose to actively move toward our own healing and freedom from the past.  This choice opens up more possibilities than we had before. 

 

Question:  Are there offenses others have committed against you that you have been waiting to feel differently about?

 

Prayer:  Thank you, Gracious God, for always choosing to forgive us.  Making that choice ourselves sometimes seems impossible.  Help us see the way toward making the choice to forgive as well.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for God to bless someone who you currently hold resentment toward.

 

Song:  Losing – Tenth Avenue North

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHcVTbyJqis