The Freedom in Forgiveness

In my opinion, forgiveness is one of the most under taught and over preached concepts in the church today. If church were a classroom setting, forgiveness would certainly find itself on the vocabulary word wall in the back of the room for all the students to refer to throughout the year. I have been advised to forgive those who have offended me and I have advised others to do the same many times, but all of a sudden when I was faced with the reality that I was not so sure I really knew how to forgive. I know that sounds absolutely insane for someone to admit, but what I realized in my own life is that I was more so trying to ignore something or someone who offended me and hurt me rather than forgiving them. I really did not know what forgiveness was.

One of the first things I had to do on my journey to discovering true forgiveness was to realize that it does not stand in a category all alone, but that just like many other things in our life that we may tend to struggle with, it is a discipline that we are to adopt through obedience. Forgiveness is not optional, I know that we often times treat it as if it is but it’s not.

Matthew 6:15 “but if you do not forgive others of their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

Ephesians 4:32 “Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.

Colossians 3:13 “Make allowances for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.

Romans 12:19-21 “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. Instead, “If your enemies are hungry, feed them. If they are thirsty, give them something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals of shame on their heads.” Don’t let evil conquer you, but conquer evil by doing good.”

I had to learn that the very first step in understanding forgiveness and how to implement it into our life is realizing that just like every other area in our life that seem impossible for us to grow in, forgiveness is not something that we are going to be able to do in our own strength. No matter how often we try to let that pain and hurt go against those who broke us, if we try to do it without the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, we will fail time and time again. The hope that we are offered is that we do not have to do anything on our own because we are given empowerment through His Spirit to guide us along the way.

The empowerment of the Holy Spirit takes the ability out of your hands and places them into the hands of the Father who is the ultimate example of forgiveness. That brings me to my next step – shift your perspective from them to you.

Matthew 18:23-33 “Therefore, the Kingdom of Heaven can be compared to a king who decided to bring his accounts up to date with servants who had borrowed money from him. In the process, one of his debtors was brought in who owed him millions of dollars. He couldn’t pay, so his master ordered that he be sold—along with his wife, his children, and everything he owned—to pay the debt. “But the man fell down before his master and begged him, ‘Please, be patient with me, and I will pay it all.’ Then his master was filled with pity for him, and he released him and forgave his debt. “But when the man left the king, he went to a fellow servant who owed him a few thousand dollars. He grabbed him by the throat and demanded instant payment. “His fellow servant fell down before him and begged for a little more time. ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it,’ he pleaded. But his creditor wouldn’t wait. He had the man arrested and put in prison until the debt could be paid in full. “When some of the other servants saw this, they were very upset. They went to the king and told him everything that had happened. Then the king called in the man he had forgiven and said, ‘You evil servant! I forgave you that tremendous debt because you pleaded with me. Shouldn’t you have mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you?’

This parable found in the Word of God gives us insight into how to forgive someone, we do not learn how to forgive by trying to forgive. We learn to forgive by focusing on how much we have been forgiven!

• We do not forgive by thinking on how the other person needs forgiveness, but how much we need it ourselves.
• We do not forgive by thinking about giving the other person grace and how difficult that might be for us because of how bad they hurt us, we forgive by thinking about how we have been given grace ourselves from God when we did not deserve it.
• We do not forgive by thinking about the one who has trespassed against us but rather thinking about how Christ has forgiven us of our own trespasses.

The truth is that we are all full of sin and we have all sinned against a God who is full of compassion and mercy towards us. The fact that we have rebelled ourselves against the creator of the universe can really start to hit home when we ponder on those things rather than trying to make a list of why the other person does not deserve our forgiveness. The reality starts to hit home when we open our own eyes and realize that we too have cheated on Christ time and time again, even when we said it would not happen again. We have stabbed Him in the back more times than we can count and have done nothing to deserve to be forgiven and yet He pours it out over us in abundance.

Despite all that you have done time and time again, the things that everyone knows about and the things that they don’t – He still chooses you! He forgives you at the highest level and offers you an extension of grace that you do not deserve, because he has the ability to do what we are not able to do ourselves – he views us from a finished work in Him! The more grace that we are able to realize that has been poured out in our own life, the easier that it becomes to extend grace towards others.

We have gotten accustomed to just using the word freely as our advice to those who have broken us, cheated on us, stabbed us in the back, talked about us and the list goes on. Forgiveness is what we should do, but how do we do it? Renew your mind in Christ! The one place that you snatch the forgiveness away from the other person before they ever get to experience it takes place in your mind.

You have to realize that you are not the victim. I know that seems really unfair, and before you think that I do not know what I am talking about because I have not lived through unfair, please stick around for a while! I completely understand how liberating it might feel to adopt a victim mindset because what someone else did just was not fair and they should be punished for the damage they caused and the hurt they inflicted. But in Christ we are not victims! We are not identified by what we have been through! We are redeemed and victorious through Him who has redeemed us!

Forgiveness is not something that you can’t do – it’s something that you won’t do! Unforgiveness is not rooted in hurt or pain, its rooted in pride! When we are not willing to forgive someone else, it places us in the seat of judgement as if we are qualified to make the call of forgiveness on their life based on what they did. When we embrace unforgiveness rather than forgiveness we are saying that even though Christ forgave us, we lack the humility to forgive others. Adopting this mindset will begin to elevate us in our own perspective to a level of entitlement which is – pride. When you are ready to experience the true freedom that is available through authentic forgiveness, you will have the humility to repent for your prideful ways and ask God to help you through this the right way – with Him!

Since forgiveness requires that we walk in obedience to the commandment that we are given by Christ Himself to forgive others, that does not mean it is going to be the easiest thing that we have ever done. When you extend forgiveness to someone else, that does not diminish the pain or take away the hurt they caused you, that happens through healing. We are promised healing in the Word of God and so therefore we rest in the promise of knowing that we will be whole again because His Word declares it over our life. By not forgiving we are hindering the promise that we are given of being healed in that area of our life because we are holding onto it on our own power. Sometimes forgiveness is something that we have to do over and over again until it becomes a reality for us. By doing it 1000 times, we are walking in faith that it is a reality in our life and will remain as part of who we are. Remembering that it is a choice is really important in those moments when we feel as if we just cannot get to the place where we can not wish the other person harm or payback in some way.

In our human nature – apart from our Spirit – we desire knowledge. Pride and knowledge are connected through the thread of entitlement. Many times when we are done wrong in our life, our forgiveness that we think we are offering is only valid if we know that they are aware we are forgiving them, and they understand how badly we were hurt. We want to extend forgiveness as long as we know that they received their punishment and judgement as they should have, but that puts us back in the seat of judgement and embraces a victim mentality. The truth is that you do not need to be rescued more than once, Christ has already rescued you from death and destruction! We should find peace in knowing that and allowing that to be enough for us!

Part of the confusion that arises when we start to forgive is that we think forgiveness means we are to have relationship and that is not always the case for many reasons. Forgiveness is not reconciliation – and they should be treated as separate. Many times we want to forgive and reconcile but in reality reconciliation in that season of your life or theirs might not be the finished work of Christ! Since we are embracing the process of forgiveness, then we must also acknowledge that there is a process of healing in other areas of our life too that need to take place before reconciliation should ever be embraced. In other words – both sides might need to grow in so many other areas before they are able to be reconciled again.

It is my hope that something that was shared here with you will encourage you in your own journey of finding forgiveness for others. We are called to forgive, not recommended to, which means that it is a commandment not an option. The hope that we have is that we are given the empowerment through the gift of the Holy Spirit to embrace this freedom of extending grace just as we have received it, even when we did not deserve it. I pray that you will share this with someone who might need some encouragement in finding forgiveness, there is such freedom in it.