Are they ashamed of their detestable conduct? No, they have no shame at all; they do not even know how to blush.  Jeremiah 8:12

Forgiveness is hard because ~ the offender doesn’t want forgiveness. 

I can make strong personal vows to never forgive someone for what they did.  I feel so powerful and in control when I withhold it.  It feels like justice.  The problem is ~ the person who offends usually only takes partial, or no responsibility for it.  Because they don’t own it, why would they care if it’s forgiven?  I can think I’m punishing them but in actuality, they are living scot-free and not even thinking about what they did, much less thinking about me.  

Oh, how difficult it is to come to this conclusion.  My so-called punishment of them is really punishing myself.  My heart suffers, my mind suffers as I obsess, and my body suffers the effects of how bitterness is being played out pathologically.  The only one who appears to be thriving is the perpetrator.  

If I watch the evening news for one week, I will undoubtedly hear a victim’s family make this vow.  “I’ll never forgive them for what they did.”  It’s the only sense of control they can seize and it feels weighty.  For the most part, in that moment, they fail to understand that the one who committed the crime doesn’t care about forgiveness withheld.  

I need to conform my thinking to biblical standards.  I don’t choose to forgive because someone has asked for it and I don’t withhold it because someone will suffer if I do.  I choose to forgive because I belong to Jesus and my life is not my own.  As He forgave me, I am to forgive others.  As His pardon of me was outrageous, so mine is to be of the same nature.  

The way of the disciple is a pathway carved out by Jesus.  I place my feet in the sandaled footprints in front of me.  When it’s difficult, and most of it is, I ask for grace.  Forgiveness is the only way I will be free to soar on the pleasures that can be mine in His presence.  I need to just trust God’s promise and I can tell you, personally, that when I have taken the leap, the freedom afforded an energy I never knew existed. 

Your law brings life, even when it doesn’t feel like it will.  Thank you.  Amen

I have often held myself to high and unbiblical standards regarding forgiveness. Like, I should walk the aisle one Sunday, confess my bitterness, and then go away and live with no more inner conflict. This lie is reinforced by the ‘talk’ we Christians have adopted. “Have you forgiven?”  The inference is that no matter how fresh or how old the wound is, forgiveness through a simple prayer forever takes care of the issue.

Peter’s description of Jesus’ life here on earth and how He handled suffering brings insight to this issue. He said, “Christ also suffered for you,leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps, who committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in His mouth; and while they hurled insults at Him, He did not insult in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to His Father who judges righteously.” I Peter 2:1-23  Jesus, modeled a lifestyle where he chose to ‘keep entrusting himself to His Father’ when hurt by people. Every time a wound was inflicted, he was tempted to take revenge but in His holiness, He showed restraint and trusted His Father to rule well over his life. Jesus didn’t forgive others just one time in some general sense. It was moment by moment, offense by offense, person by person.

I’ve received many women at the altar over the years. Some came forward to share their painful stories. The most serious wounds were inflicted by family.  Most of the relationships were still broken and that made forgiveness confusing. I told them that life will have to be characterized by act after act of intentional forgiveness. 

If someone close to you hurt you, you forgave them, but perhaps you wonder why you feel pain all over again when they continue to wound you in the same ways. Shouldn’t yesterday’s forgiveness have taken care of today’s arrows? No. Not for us. Not for Jesus, either.  Forgiveness is a life-style choice, not a one time event.

If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.  Romans 12:18

Just as it takes two people to have a relationship, it takes two people to rebuild it.  There must be unity, humility, vulnerability, admission of wrongdoing as God defines it, and reconciliation with God for both parties to be able to build something solid. 

More than not, what happens is that one person in the broken relationship either can’t admit what they’ve done or can’t forgive what was done to them. If one is too proud to ask for forgiveness and the other is too proud to offer it, reconciliation can’t be realized.  

Paul said, ‘If it is possible, live at peace.’  The ‘if’ is important to digest because it’s possible, due to people’s sinfulness, to never achieve reconciliation.  Forgiveness only takes one person.  It’s a unilateral act between me and God.  Reconciliation takes two people ~ the offender and the victim ~ coming together in agreement before God about what transpired.  This is the necessary ingredient for there to be the beginnings of a relationship again. 

Most offenders fail to see what they’ve done, however.  They aren’t willing to own it.  Does that mean I can’t have peace and closure in my own heart?  No.  I can still do my part and forgive them.  I take them off my hook and put them on God’s hook.  I yield my rights to play judge and jury and repent of my desire to make them pay.  Then what?  I pray for them and I wait.  I poise myself on the line of reconciliation and wait for that person to seek God and the truth of what caused the broken relationship.  

People in marriages, families and friendships, deeply hurt one another, then offer a generalized, token apology that is pretty meaningless.  “Guess I’m just bad at being married.” Then they consider that an adequate apology and want everything back to normal.  These are not grounds for reconciliation!  We are told to be wise as serpents and harmless as doves.  We get the ‘harmless’ part of the equation and remain inexperienced with the counterpart.  Sometimes, we want peace more than we want truth and rush to patch things up when there is no foundation upon which to build.  

For those of you waiting, God waits to give grace.  For those of you who are about to rush in to an unsafe relationship, God wants to give you pause. 

Be angry and sin not.  Don’t let the sun go down on your wrath.  Ephesians 4:26

While anger may be toxic, it is not always an unholy thing.  Yes, it fuels bitterness and acts of revenge but it also moves God’s people to pray, to right wrongs, and to take needed actions.  

If you are in pain because an unrighteous act has been committed, and if you are feeling anger, that is not necessarily evidence that you have failed to forgive.  We should each be angry over the things God is angry about.

Having grown up in a home where anger was rarely displayed, I grew up to be afraid of it.  Thinking it was always a product of sin, I was afraid to feel it and was also afraid of anyone who was going from frustration to anger. I had no experience with it.  It’s been a process to learn that because God gets angry, it can also be in my emotional landscape.  And, I must admit that I’m comforted by a God like that.  I want a Father who is angry over sin and injustice.  

We’ve been shown the face of God in Jesus; the many shades of His character as well as His complex emotional life.  More than once, His anger was on full display within the full parameters of righteousness.  Jesus overturned tables in the temple because poor Jewish people were being told their sacrifice wasn’t good enough.  They were then sold a replacement for 10x the going rate.  He also called religious abusers vipers because they questioned most everything He said and attempted to nullify His message.  He showed us that it’s possible to feel anger over sin.  When God’s children are hurt, anger is a part of His response.   

How can I sift righteous and unrighteous anger inside my heart?  When offended, I ask myself some questions like these.  Am I offended because they hurt me or because their sin offended the heart of God?  Is my anger kindled because I am indignant?  My pride wounded?  My goals thwarted?  It’s clearer if the wound has not been personal but something I’ve witnessed happening to others.  

I will say, in my experience, that when I’m wronged, it’s more rare when my anger is holy.  But it has happened.  When others are wronged however, I have experienced a piece of the fury of God’s heart over the destruction sin has caused.  

Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.  Psalm 51:6

There is usually no end to the lengths I will go to protect myself from pain. If I believe a partial truth because I want to avoid something stark, surely that’s okay if it saves me from further suffering, right? Not according to my Father. He values truth, requires it, and tells me it’s only for my good and total healing if I value it as well.

How does this play into forgiveness? When someone wounds me and the pain threatens to undo my heart, I will self-protect by beginning to offer excuses. “They only did that because . . .”  How about, “They didn’t mean it.”  Or, “He only does it every once in a while.”

Excusing them as a way to block out the pain is a way of minimizing what they did.  It’s as if I start with a basketball-sized offense. Every time I excuse it, it gets re-shaped and becomes smaller. Eventually, what was once the size of a basketball is now the size of a golf ball. It no longer even resembles the original offense. Forgiving some made-made, altered offense feels much safer whereas forgiving the real thing is excruciating.  Oh, but it’s necessary.

Perhaps you’ve extended forgiveness but failed to find any closure. You said the right words but have felt no better. It didn’t feel real and honest. Could it be that you did not allow God to show you the whole truth deep in your spirit? Could it be that you chose to self-protect by minimizing the intent of the offender? There isn’t freedom until each of us forgives the real thing and it’s only bearable with God’s arms tightly around us. Forgiveness is empowered supernaturally by grace.  We can not manufacture it with our own elegant mind-games.

“I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more.  Isaiah 43:25

The pressure to be like Jesus can be overwhelming if I’m part of a legalistic environment.  Satan also whispers the lie that God only loves me when I’m making progress.  Never will I struggle more than when I try to be like God and (as we call it) ‘forgive and forget.’  Of the many myths surrounding forgiveness, this is one of the most destructive. 

If I’ve really forgiven someone, does that mean that I will stop thinking about what they’ve done?  And if that event goes through my mind every so often, am I sinning?  ‘Forgiving and forgetting’ is often linked to the Isaiah scripture that headed this chapter. What’s behind God’s words?  

When I repent and ask for God’s forgiveness, He takes the sins that separated me from Him and puts them behind His back, out of sight.  He never brings them out again, holds them up to my face and says, “Remember what you did!?”  They are out of sight. ‘Remembering them no more’ means they are no longer an issue between us. 

Remembering offenses to feed my bitterness is different than remembering  offenses to pursue wisdom.  God is always there to help me review my life, the good and the bad, piece by piece. He teaches me about my offenders and about myself, revealing why I reacted the way I did.  The wisdom gained is what scripture refers to as the ‘treasures of the darkness.’

If I consider my worst hurt and what was done against me, and if I track the instruction given by the Holy Spirit about that event, I discover that my soul and spirit are enriched to the point of overflowing.  If you have forgiven others after something horrendous, you are also rich in wisdom and could give lengthy instruction to others.  That’s because, with the mind of Christ, our scars make us wise.

As helpful as it is to learn what forgiveness is, it’s even more impactful to learn what it is not.  There are many misconceptions surrounding this topic.  One of them is that if I choose to forgive, I’m insinuating that what happened to me was no big deal.  That is simply not true.  

As children of God, we are called to be like our Father. God feels strongly about sin and so must we.  He took it so seriously that He sacrificed the life of His Son to make us holy again.  I must take sin, and the sacrifice of God’s Son, so seriously that I also do something outrageous ~ forgive because I am forgiven.  

Forgiving another doesn’t reduce the gravity of their sin. It is possible to forgive while imposing boundaries.  I can forgive while initiating consequences.  Forgiveness does not even exclude involving the law and civil authorities. Restraining orders and arrests for assault are often necessary.

God forgave King David and gave him a fresh page on the canvas of his life by bringing forth the birth of Solomon.  Yet, included in his future were also the consequences of his sin. It started with the death of the child he and Bathsheba conceived outside of marriage. 

Joseph forgave his brothers but he didn’t excuse their sin.  He set up a test for them to prove a change of heart.  He was clear as he addressed them. “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.” Genesis 50:20  He did not tell not to worry about what they had done because God worked everything out in the end.  

I am commanded to forgive because that’s what my Father did for me.  I  must forgive small things as well as horrific things.  I am not exempt because of the severity of an offense.  God rules over large and small matters and I can trust him to rule and redeem everything that concerns me.     Whether or not I see redemption is dependent on my obedience.  Bitterness and revenge tie God’s hands from blessing me with beautiful outcomes. 

I know that I am not a citizen of earth, but, of heaven.  I know that God is my ultimate authority.  I know that life here is flawed and the kingdom of heaven runs perfectly.  So why do I look for the affairs of earth to go fairly?  Why do I fear God has failed me if a court case doesn’t go my way, or if I’m passed over for a promotion, or if betrayal has become a familiar bedfellow?  I should know better than to be rocked by earth’s imperfections.  I should know better than to blame God.  I live with hope deferred ~ realizing that while sometimes God intervenes and causes justice to prevail here, much of the time, it doesn’t.  I am to live yearning for my future home where nothing is corrupted. 

When life is unfair, I remember that God is my King.  Authorities here are not always going to see things from God’s perspective.  Did Jesus have to battle the discrepancies between earth and heaven?  Yes.  Peter revealed how he handled it. 

Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps, who committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in His mouth; and while they hurled insults at Him, He did not insult in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to His Father who judges righteously.  I Peter 2:1-23

I’m struck by the verb tense in the last sentence.  Jesus kept entrusting Himself to His Father. Since He was tempted in every way as you and I are tempted, He experienced similar thoughts of taking revenge and exacting some kind of immediate justice.  But being sinless, He stopped, restrained Himself, and left ruling the universe to His Father. He did this at every moment of pain and injustice.  Peter enumerates them.  If He had to make this his kind of lifestyle, so do I.  He didn’t just decide to forgive at age twelve and then never struggle with it again.  When his family called him crazy, he had to stop and entrust Himself to His father.  When Judas betrayed Him, He had to stop and entrust Himself to His father again.  At every turn, the same decision was made over and over.

Allowing God to be King of my life is a moment by moment choice.  I decide to lay down my rights to take revenge.  I abdicate my rights to decide when someone deserves to be forgiven, or when they’re sorry enough.

Jesus, who knew God’s redemptive plan, didn’t believe He was exempt from suffering.  He anticipated it and needed grace, as I do, to withstand the trials that come with living here on a broken planet, with broken people.  

Father, just as You infused Your Son with supernatural power to forgive others, even when on the cross, I count on that today in my many disappointments.  Amen

When I choose to forgive someone, it is as though I am gift wrapping a package in the most exquisite paper and then placing it in God’s hands. “Here, this is for you, Lord.”  Because forgiving some people feels excruciating, why would I want to give God a gift that feels so expensive to give?  Because I want to give in response to how deeply He has forgiven me.  

Jesus was once a guest at the home of a wealthy man named Simon. Simon and his wife probably had an expectation of how the evening would go since they were the hosts but they couldn’t foresee that a woman would arrive who would do something outrageous. She came to the table where everyone was reclining and began to pour expensive perfume on Jesus’ feet. She emptied the jar. The cost to her amounted to a full year’s salary. Simon, the host, thought to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is —that she is a sinner.” Jesus began to tell a parable about who loves more….someone who has been forgiven a small debt or another who has been forgiven a huge debt. Jesus said to Simon, “You did not give me any water for my feet when I arrived. You did not kiss me. You did not put oil on my head but she has wet my feet with her tears, has not stopped kissing my feet, and has poured perfume on them. Her many sins have been forgiven for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little.” Luke 7 

According to Jesus, there is a mathematical equation in play. The amount to which I’m willing to forgive someone else is directly related to how much I have asked Jesus to forgive me.   Do I consider myself a good person compared to others?  Do I believe that I don’t need as much in the way of a pardon?  Perhaps I don’t see that the ground at Calvary is level. We all come condemned, and will leave condemned unless we acknowledge our need of a Savior who paid death’s penalty for our sin. If I believe I’m better than the one I’m asked to forgive, I will be stingy when it comes time to forgive him. I will extend a fist rather than an open hand.   

If you feel that there is no way you can forgive a certain person, and you’re just stuck, ask God to show you how much it cost Jesus to save you. I did that and I ended up mourning my sin for a season. Nothing was more beneficial to my heart than that. 

It’s easy for me to believe that if I choose to forgive someone, I am giving them the gift.  While that may be true, God wants me to also understand that the first person who benefits from forgiving others is me.  If I withhold it, I will suffer long-term.  If I extend it, I will benefit long-term.  Look at Isaiah’s testimony. 

It was good for me to suffer this anguish for you have rescued me from the pit of nothingness and have forgiven all my sins.  I will sing His praises with instruments every day of my life in the temple of the Lord.  Is:38:16-18

Isaiah describes the existence of one who does not know he is forgiven nor does he extend it.  It’s called ‘the pit of nothingness’.  It’s that place we tend to go to when we’ve been hurt too badly.  We swear that no one will be able to wound us that severely again.  We take precautions by shutting our heart away.  Thick veneers of cynicism guard us and distrust relegates us to a lonely place.  In that pit of nothingness, there is no creativity, no artistry.  Before I was able to forgive, the piano lid remained closed and my flutes stayed in the closet.  Everything I tried to write sounded hollow in my ears.  Praise and worship were absent.  That’s because praise and bitterness cannot coexist.  

It’s hard to evaluate ourselves and our level of abundant life when we are the ones holding on to bitterness.  It feels good and it feels justified.  So – let’s look outside ourselves. Can you name 2-3 people who live angry and who rehearse other’s offenses from years back?  You probably dread being around them.  They infect the environment spiritually.  Over the years, their faces became twisted.  Frown lines froze in place and now dominate their countenance.  I often wonder if all the people they rail against are even aware that they have offended them.  Let me ask you, ‘Who is being hurt most by the bitterness?’  The ones who hold on to it, right?  If they forgave, imagine the spiritual oppression that would leave them.     

God wired us to trust Him to rule wisely over our friends and enemies.  The problem comes when faith is required to trust a God we can’t see, who has a plan we don’t understand, and whose timetable is much more relaxed than ours.  But peace is promised for the just who will choose to walk by faith.  

Jesus, delayed gratification is so difficult when it comes to matters of justice.  You waited well and are still waiting for end times.  Wait with me.  Amen