AN ENCOURAGEMENT TOWARDS FORGIVENESS
All of us have experienced hurt and pain. All of us are living life wounded. We learn to deal with our wounds and press forward, but whether we acknowledge it or not, wounds and scars change us. We live in an imperfect world with imperfect humans who sometimes hurt us because we are all broken and in need of healing and forgiveness.
Offering forgiveness to others is one of the most difficult and important aspects of the Christian life. God knows forgiveness is difficult. He knows that it takes courage and strength to offer mercy where it is undeserved. Jesus understands because that is exactly what he did for us as he hung on the cross.
Failure to forgive, hurts you more than anyone else. When we carry protected wounds, it always turns to bitterness, and bitterness always corrupts and expands (Hebrews 12:15). Carrying a load of bitterness is physically demanding, emotionally exhausting, mentally tormenting, relationally isolating, and spiritually crushing.
Forgiveness does not mean that we will cease to hurt or that we will forget. It is not pretending that the offense did not really matter or that things are just the same as before the offense. Things might never be the same, but by God’s grace, they can even be better.
Forgiveness means that the power of love that holds us together is greater than the power of the offense that separates us. Forgiveness is a choice of my will to release a debt, by faith, to glorify God because that’s the way that God treats us. I am never more like God than when I forgive. If you desire that your life glorify God, then you must FORGIVE!
But why should I forgive? It is the precondition to receiving God’s forgiveness. “For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins” (Matthew 6:14-15). Furthermore, it is commanded of believers in response to God’s forgiveness. Paul’s exhortation in Colossians 3:13 states: “bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you.”
God wants me to forgive others without counting or conditions (Matthew 18:21-22) and without retaliation (Romans 12:17-19). When you can pray for the one who hurt you (Matthew 5:44), bless the one who offended you (Luke 6:28), and do good to the one who wounded you (Luke 6:27, 35), then you know that you have truly forgiven that person.
Ultimately, forgiveness comes down to a choice that God both commands and enables. Will you ask God to fill you with his courage and perspective so that you can forgive those who need a glimpse of his mercy and grace?
