Choosing Forgiveness - Chapter 3 – The Promise of Forgiveness?

 

Quotes & Summary in White – My thoughts in Red

 “I wish the delete key was so easy to press in real life.  In many ways, what happens we trash a computer document is a vivid picture of what takes place when we truly forgive someone for an offense they’ve thrust upon us.  We eliminate it.  We clear the record.  We treat it as if the sin never occurred in the first place.  Isn’t that the way God has forgiven us?  Isn’t that how He tells us to forgive others?  ‘Bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive’ (Col 3:13).

I wish that I could push the delete key… I wish I could forget all the pain that went along with the offenses.  I wish I could forget the words, the accusations (even the ones that still get thrown at us). Lord, we are to forgive as you have forgiven us… but we cannot do this on our own.  We are not God.  Even if I press the delete key on some of the offenses it does not change the situation… the relationship has still been destroyed and will only be restored by the grace of God.  There is nothing I can do about that.  Some things are completely out of my control.  I will be honest and say I am wrestling with this concept.  It is impossible to forgive and forget… somehow, I need to learn to forgive and when I remember still not hold it against them. 

 

“God has forgiven all our trespasses, ‘And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross’ (Col 2:13-14).  At one time, the ‘record’ was right there, accusing us, exposing us, vindicating His righteous anger against us.  But with one press of the delete key, our Holy, Merciful God erased the whole thing.  Nothing was saved on a backup disk.  Nothing printed out in hard copy.  Nothing stored up in a separate folder or filing cabinet in case it proved useful to whip it out again someday.  All of it, deleted.  Forever.  All because of Christ’s death on the cross—in our place.  Debt cancelled.”

Lord, thank you for cancelling my debt.  For not holding my sins against me.  Help me to do the same with those who have sinned against me.  Help me to not store it away to bring up in the future.  This is another area in which I struggle… when we have been hurt in one area, we fear being hurt again… so we hold onto those memories and build up walls so that the person can’t hurt us again… can’t sin against us in the same way.  I need to tear down some of the walls I have built up… I need to give grace to the other person and give them the opportunity to walk in freedom instead of constantly condemning them to the sin of their past.  God knows I wouldn’t be able to walk in freedom if my past was constantly hanging over my head… how can I expect others to not hurt me again if I am constantly judging them for their past mistakes. 

 

“I believe most of us, in our dealings with others and the pain they’ve brought into our lives, would love to get to that point.  We’d love to see the pain and bitterness gone, a nonissue, done away with. But the problem is, we know that just pushing a button won’t make all the feelings disappear.  It won’t totally undo the damage or put everything back like it was.  So why even try?  Why set ourselves up for disappointment, perhaps leaving the door open for this to happen again and to hurt us even worse?”

This is exactly what happened when I did the study the first time… I reached out to the person who has hurt me the most in life only to be hurt once again.  It is hard when you know someone has such horrible views of you that it doesn’t matter what you do, they lash out at you… even when they say they are trying to leave the past in the past… they still say things that are cutting and judgmental… all in the name of “telling the truth” or at the least the truth according to their perspective.  Unfortunately, we live in a society that believes that truth is based on our own perspective… and doesn’t take the time to see a situation through the eyes of another…. doesn’t seek to find out all the details.  

 Honestly, I wish I could get rid of all the pain and bitterness, not just in my own life but in the life of all the parties involved, but I don’t have that kind of power.  Only God does.  Lately, my prayer has changed from having reconciliation… to that God would heal each person’s heart.  That He would draw them to the cross.  That God would open their eyes to the truth and bring about true healing… healing only He can bring.  I am also praying that God will fill the hole in my heart… however He so desires.  I am no longer going to tell Him how He needs to do it… but open my eyes to how He is trying to do it.  For the first time in a long time, I am excited for what the future holds. 

 

“Forgiveness is a promise—a promise never to bring up that sin against the person again—not to God, not to the other person who committed it, not to anyone else.  It is a deliberate decision to deal with another’s sin by doing away with it, pressing the delete button, wiping it off our slate.  With the promise of forgiveness, we relinquish our ‘right’ to punish the offender or to make him pay—his record has been cleared.”

This is another area that I struggle with… honestly, I don’t know if it is completely Biblical that we don’t ever “bring up” the situation again.  I know that God has used some of our deepest hurts as our greatest ministries.  How do we minister to others who are struggling in a similar situation if we don’t talk about what God has done in our own life…?  So, while I may no longer hold onto it as a way to “punish” the other person or paint them in a bad light… I pray I can learn how to talk about the situation in such a way that God is glorified, and I can be an encouragement to someone else that is struggling through a similar situation. 

 I do need to learn to not bring up ‘past sins’ of Matthew when we are arguing… I have a bad habit of doing this… so it is definitely an area I need to work on… I need to give him a fresh slate and give him the ability to show how God has changed Him in certain areas.  I know I don’t want my “past sins” constantly thrown back in my face… so why would I do it to the ones I love?

 

“He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities.  For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.”   (Psalm 103:10-12)

“Yes, what we did to Him was real.  What we continue to do against Him is real.  But by the atoning blood of His Son, God has chosen not to remember our offenses.  He has put them behind His back.  The matter of forgiveness is truly at the core—the very heart—of the gospel.  Even our excuses for not forgiving keep bringing us back to the cross, back to where forgiveness was perfectly applied.  We of all people should appreciate the joy of forgiveness… by knowing what a treasure it is to be purely and perfectly forgiven.”

We can forgive others because we have been forgiven.  The cross is the reminder of how much we have been forgiven… not because we deserve it, not because of anything we did, not because we even acknowledged our sins at the time.  Jesus chose to die on the cross… to forgive us for every one of our sins… because He loves us.   He removes our sins completely from us as far as the east is from the west… He no longer holds them against us.  I am forever grateful for His forgiveness… and when I am reflecting on this gift… it urges me to forgive those who have sinned against me… not because they deserve it, not because of anything they did, not because they have even acknowledged the pain that they caused me… but because Jesus died on the cross for them too.  Lord, help me to remember this when I am struggling to forgive.

 

 “In his moving book The Last Jew of Rotterdam, Ernie tells of kneeling on the floor of his prison cell one unending day, reading the Bible… Jesus met with me in my prison cell, and He had something to ask me:  ‘Can you forgive the Germans, Ernie? Can you pray for them and love them?’  Ernie’s shoulders stiffened. ‘Forgive them?  Love them? O Jesus, how can I?  They’ve taken me prisoner.  They’ve killed Hetty.  Forgive them?  It’s too much for me, Lord.’ Matthew 5:44 states, ‘ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you’. ‘I can’t, Lord.’  What else can a man really say?  How impossible is forgiveness of that magnitude! ‘But if You will help me, I will try.  Please. Help me.’ And one by one, the chains of hatred, anger, and bitterness began to snap in Ernie’s heart.” 

 Summary – Ernie later received a phone called from the wife of the commander that held him prisoner.  He was dying and requested a visit from Ernie.  Ernie felt an urging from the Lord to go see him, so he went.  He then felt God was calling him to kiss him… so he did.  The man burst into tears and apologized.  Ernie then had the opportunity to lead him to the Lord. 

What a testimony Ernie leaves behind.   If he can forgive the Nazis… I can forgive those who have hurt me.  Yes, the pain I experienced was real… it was life changing… I felt crushed by it… but at the same time it was NOTHING compared to what this man faced in a Nazi prison… completely alone… losing the love of his life to death… suffering physically and emotionally… but God met him there in that cell.  God spoke to him in that cell.  The same God that was with Ernie in that cell is with me today.  He is speaking into my heart urging me to forgive… to love those who have hurt me deeply.  If Ernie can do it, so can I… not in my own strength but in God’s…!

 

“So while forgiveness is indeed costly, it is not beyond the means of those who have Christs’ life flowing within them.  When God tells us to love our enemies, He also gives us the love to go along with the command.  Yes, you can do this… because He can do this.  That’s a promise.”

God does not expect us to be able to forgive and love our enemies on our own strength.  Some wounds are too hard to do on our own… yes, we are commanded to forgive, yes, we are commanded to love our enemies… but just like all the other commandments, He has given us His Holy Spirit so we can obey them.  I can forgive because I have been forgiven and have the Holy Spirit at work in me.  I just need to allow the love of the Holy Spirit to flow through me onto the lives of those who have wounded me. 

 

“Do you have a situation where forgiveness seems impossible.  Perhaps you’re thinking, ‘’I just can’t forgive this person for what he’s done to me.  It’s too painful to deal with.  He’s done it too many times.  He’s hurt me too deeply.’  I wouldn’t being to deny the ‘deeply hurt’ part.  If you were to tell me your story or share it with a close friend, we would see it in your eyes.  We would hear it in your voice.  We would know that this sin has injured you in a deep and tender place… we must all ask ourselves- ‘Is my ability or willingness to forgive based on the magnitude of the offense?’ In other words, is there a threshold of pain beyond which we are not required to forgive, one perhaps where it is impossible to forgive?”

The longer we live on earth and the older I get… the more I think that we have all come across a situation that seems impossible to forgive in our own strength.  We live in a fallen world… a world in which will be hurt deeply by other people… a world in which we will hurt other people deeply… not because we want to but because of sin.  While it may feel impossible to forgive at times… I don’t want to be on the other side of the coin… the one that has hurt someone and the ‘hurt’ party is unwilling to forgive me… If I am truly allowing God to be at work in my life… then He can heal every hurt in my heart… nothing is too difficult for Him.  He has seen it all… He has bore it all on the cross… every hurt that we endure, He also endures… ever sin against us, is also against Him and yet He still forgives… He is the perfect example.  So, while it may feel impossible to forgive… I learned a long time ago that we can’t trust our feelings… I can trust God’s Word and He will give me peace and He will always be with me… that means He will help me to forgive what I may think is impossible. 

 

“Scriptures reminds us… ‘He will again have compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities underfoot.  You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea (Micah 7:19).’ God has cast all our sins into the depths of the sea!  These sins include insults and rejection, ‘But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by mankind and despised by the people. All who see me mock me; they make mouths at me; they wag their heads (Psalm 22:6-7); ‘He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not (Isaiah 53:3).’  Add to these the sins of our own, the ones we know so well, those that contributed to the guilt Jesus bore on the cross.  Yet this is the same God ‘I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins (Isaiah 43:25).’ A God who found us dead in our transgressions and made us alive together with Christ because of His great love for us (Eph 2:4-5).”

Rejection… that is something I have such a hard time with.  I desire to be loved and accepted.  I have felt the pain of rejection… and it hurts.  I cannot imagine how much deeper Jesus felt it… not only when He was rejected by those He came to save, but when He was separated by the Father on the cross… so He could bear our sins.  Lord, when I start to mourn the loss of a relationship because they have “rejected” me… help me to remember that You have not rejected me and that is the only relationship that matters. 

 

“You may not feel any natural ‘great love’ toward the one who brought you such shipwreck into your life—the one who trampled on your marriage vows, or the one who abused you as a child, or the one who cheated you out of thousands of dollars.  No one would expect you to… but the power—and the beauty—of the transformed Christian life is that ‘it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure’ (Phil 2:13).”

 “It will never be the depth of your love that causes you to forgive such heartless acts and attitudes.  It will never be within your power to overlook the wicked lies and wild justifications of those who have made you distrustful of just about everybody.  It will be—it can only be—the love of Christ transplanted into your believing heart that can exchange your weakness for His strength.  And because He has forgiven us—what offense is too great for us to forgive?  C.S. Lewis said, “To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable, because God has forgiven the inexcusable in us.’”

What a great reminder… I don’t have to wait until I “feel” like it to forgive someone… I need to forgive them now because I was commanded by God to do so… not because they deserve it but because I am a follower of Christ and Christ is glorified when I do it.  I don’t have to forgive them in my own strength… I can cry out for God’s strength to do it… I can rely on God.  For when I am weak, He is strong.  

 

“We sometimes feel that, if we forgive someone, justice will not be served.  They’ll get off scot-free.  We’ll be doing little more than giving them permission to do wrong again, seeing how easily we let them get away with it this time.  ‘Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord’ (Romans 12:19).  Letting the offender off your hood doesn’t means off God’s hook.  Forgiveness releases the accused from your custody and turn him over to God—the righteous Judge—the one and only One who is both able and responsible for meting out justice.”

 “I want to clarify a couple important points here: when the Bible teaches us to forgive those who sin against us—to let them off our ‘hook’—it does not minimize the seriousness of their sin or suggest that what they have done is okay.  Nor does it suggest that we should knowingly enable the person to keep sinning or relieve them of the consequences for their wrongdoing… Take, for example, abusive situations, criminal activities, unethical things you may know concerning people at work.  It is not wrong (and may be necessary) to report someone, to turn guilty offenders over to the appropriate authorities who can hold them accountable, to be part of helping them face the reality of what they’ve done.  But if your heart in doing so is bitter or vengeful—if you are being vindictive, obsessed with revenge, inwardly hoping to see their downfall—then you are still holding on to the controls.”

Forgiveness does not mean that I have to allow the person to continue to hurt me… or someone else.  If what they are doing is not a criminal act but causes me pain, I can put up boundaries and prevent them from tearing me down and destroying me.  I don’t have to remain in an abusive, unhealthy relationship… I don’t have to allow someone to utterly destroy me with their words.  If what they are doing is against the law, forgiveness does not mean that they don’t have to be held accountable for the actions before the courts.  They may have consequences for their actions, but it is our job to release them into the proper authorities (God or the courts) and release them from our judgment. 

 

“Please hear me— I am not suggesting that we should shield others at all costs from the consequences of their actions, or just take anything they inflict on us and sit there doing nothing.  I am saying that their judgment before God is not ours to accelerate.  God will deal with the Nabals in our lives… Living with a fool had not forced her (Abigail) to act like one.  Proverbs 11:21 says, ‘Be assured, an evil person will not go unpunished, but the offspring of the righteous will be delivered.’  We must seek God’s wisdom (and perhaps seek counsel from a pastor or mature believer) in dealing day-to-day with the Nabals in our lives.  But we must remember that their real business is with God.  He will repay.”

I have learned that as I pray for the “Nabals” in my life… for God to be at work in their life… that even if I don’t desire to be in relationship with them, I no longer desire God to discipline them either.  I desire for them to know the love and peace of God that I have experienced… to walk closely with Him and turn from their ways.  I don’t want others to be in charge of choosing my punishment… therefore, I am going to trust God to be at work in their lives… He knows what they need to draw them back into right relationship with Him… and ultimately that should be our desire. 

 

“I can’t begin to tell you how many people have written or responded to me, telling me that by God’s grace they have chosen to press the delete key—to forgive, to clear the record.  Has this automatically fixed everything for those individuals? No.  Has it changed their circumstances at all? Not always. Not immediately.  But even when you can’t see the results—though the situation may not clear up entirely or get any better at all—you can still know that you’ve done what God has required of you.  You can continue to forgive as His grace and love flow through you.  And you can walk in peace—His peace.  As Paul wrote in Philippians 4:7, the peace of God will ‘guard’ you heart—your feelings, your emotions.  It will ‘guard’ you mind—your thoughts, your decisions.  That’s because His peace does its hard work in your life ‘through Christ Jesus,’ who knows what it means—and what it costs—to forgive it all.”

Lord, as I walk down this path of forgiveness… as Satan tries to attack me with difficult circumstances… I pray for Your peace to guard my heart and my mind… be at work in me.  Don’t allow the enemy to win the battle.  Lord, you are a good God, and You can change my circumstances in an instant… You can heal a broken relationship with the snap of Your finger… but it doesn’t always happen that way.  Walk with me through this process as I choose to forgive…

 

 Making it Personal Questions: (Too personal to share specifics with everyone 😊 )

Is there a “Nabal” in your life that you need to entrust to God?  How can you respond in a way that demonstrates forgiveness, courage, wisdom, and faith?

 What fears, feelings, or reservations may have kept you from forgiving someone who has sinned against you?  How does God’s Word address those concerns?

 “Forgiveness is a promise—a promise never to bring up that sin against that person again, not to God, not to the person who committed it, not to anyone else.” Based on that description, is there anyone who you still need to forgive?  Will you press the delete button and let it go?