Forgiveness: Part Two

Eh, it's a little early. So sue me!

The second type of forgiveness is a little bit harder to deal with… that is our forgiveness of others. Oh, and if you are new and haven’t read Forgiveness: Part One, go back and read it. Now! Why are you still here? GO!! Gee whiz…

Ok. Anyway, today we are talking about forgiving those that have hurt us. As I said, this one is WAY harder. Is there anyone you are harboring unforgiveness for? Maybe an old ex-boyfriend that cheated on you. Maybe your friend told a secret about you. Maybe your parents haven’t been what they needed to be in your life. All of us have struggled at one time or another with this. It’s time to let it go.

“Why?” You may be asking. “You don’t know what they did to me! Why should I forgive them? They’re not even sorry!” Good point. I have absolutely no idea what they did to you. But stick with me for a little bit longer, and I shall do my best to give you God’s answer on the subject.

There are a few different reasons as to why God wants us to forgive. Because we as humans are selfish creatures, I will start with the one that most closely concerns our personal benefit. When you hold on to unforgiveness, it eats you up inside. Don’t deny it… you know it to be true. The object of your anger may be going about, blissfully unaware of your wrath or hatred. It may not concern them at all. But you… you know you haven’t forgiven them. You think about it every time you see that person. You carry it around with you, and it festers and matures, and makes you truly miserable. Maybe that person does know about it. Maybe you are quite open about the slate not being clean. Congratulations, now you have TWO unhappy people!

The second reason… because Jesus forgave you. “What?” you might be thinking. “What is this weirdo talking about?” This weirdo will gladly tell you. When you sin, you are consciously saying “No!” to God. That hurts Him. However, no matter how much you hurt Him throughout your life, He loves you enough that He is willing to wipe the slate clean. Now, if you are living the Christian life, then we want to be like Jesus, right? That’s what being a Christian is, being in a relationship with and having Jesus live through you. So logically, it would make sense that He wants us to forgive. “But that’s different!” You may be saying. “He’s GOD, isn’t He? Isn’t that sort of what He does?”

Hmm.

Well, yes, He is God. And yes, God can do anything. But does he HAVE to? In reality, it’s absolutely amazing that He would even allow such imperfect beings as ourselves to exist, much less to give us the option of living with Him for eternity. Yet, He does. Because we are worth it? No. Because we deserve it? No. It’s because He loves us, just as we are called to love others. It says in John 13:34-35, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." In the Greek language (the language this part of the Bible was written in) there was no punctuation, so they instead emphasized important things by repeating them. The phrase ‘Love one another’ was repeated three times!! Does that maybe signify to you that it is important?

So how do we apply this to forgiveness? How did God show His love for us? He forgave us. Hint hint, maybe we should show our love of others by forgiving them?

You may still be shouting, “But this is different!! This person has truly hurt me!” ok. I don’t doubt that you have been hurt, many of you more than I could ever understand. But is it really different? Let’s break this down a bit and be hypothetical.

Suppose one of your best friends totally betrayed you. Suppose someone then publicly humiliated you, turned almost everyone you know against you, beat you to a bloody pulp, exposed you naked in the most public place in town, and then… hmm, what came next? Oh yeah, then they started to kill you. If you found yourself in that position, would you find it particularly easy to forgive those people? Would you even bother to try? Frankly, I don’t honestly know that I would be able to.

But Jesus did. Put into modern terms, that’s pretty much what Jesus went through, only a heck of a lot worse. As He was nailed to that cross, slowly dying the most torturous and humiliating death imaginable, do you know what He looked up to heaven and said? In Luke 23:34, “Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

Still think it was easy? Still think you are really that different?

Now I move on to some others of you who may be reading this blog. Perhaps you aren’t thinking that you don’t want to forgive… maybe you are thinking that you can’t forgive. Perhaps there are some of you out there that have tried and tried to forgive this person in your life, but they have just hurt you too deeply. It is especially for you that I have wonderful news.

We don’t have to do these things on our own strength. Sometimes we can’t do things on our own, and that’s ok. I tried for a long time to remove something from my life that was displeasing to God, but could never do it because I was still trying to work off of my own strength. It wasn’t until I asked God to change me, and to do that work in me, that I was delivered. If you want to know about that, ask me and I’ll gladly tell you. But it takes a real act of surrender to look to God and say, “I can’t do it, so please do it through me! Put forgiveness in my heart, because I have been so deeply hurt that I can’t do it on my own!” and you know what? He will. It may not be easy… but He will do it. It says in Mark 2:7, “…Who can forgive sins but God alone?” Lean on Him. Let Him be your strength and your provider. We don’t have to struggle with these things by ourselves.

So again I ask you… do you have someone you need to forgive? Pray about it. Seek God over it and give your burden to Him.