the glory of christianity is to conquer by forgiveness -william blake
but how?
we've spent the first half ..considering some of the major whys of forgiveness (F).
bug like everything else in the christian life, forgiving others is much more than
what-fors and how-comes.
OURS IS AN ACTIVE FAITH.
it is made alive and appealing only when our nouns (forgiveness) turn into verbs. (forgive)
on the other side of 'choosing forgiveness' is the kind of life
god intended for you when He sent His Son to die for your sin -
the freedom to bless others,
to walk unhindered by bitterness and resentment,
to relate confidently with God and with people around you
and most important to be a living, walking display of the gospel and grace of Christ.
but how do you get there?
how do you come to the place where forgiveness can do its healing work,
both in you and in your offender?
how do you become like the woman who wrote to share,
'i have chosen to forgive my husband
for the sexual relationship he had with his girlfriend before we met.
i've been holding on to this hurt for four years.
i'm excited now to embrace him and tell him he has been released.
how do you find freedom from an issue that's been seething and simmering
for a good part of your lifetime,
like the person who told me,
'the Lord had me release a prisoner that i've held captive for over 16 years.
now God can restore the years that the locusts have eaten.'
how do you overcome an offense so entangled in your heart
that it's shaped the person you are and the way you react to all of life,
like the woman who said,
'i was molested by my brothers and father for as long as i could remember until i was 16.
this led to years of letting men abuse my body.
i never knew how to have a healthy relationship with men.
i have held this hatred for so long in my heart.
but i am choosing to release it and give it to God.
i've seen the Lord give people grace to forgive in situations that are almost beyond belief.
...WHO DID IT?
i want to suggest three practical steps you can take
-both to accelerate and cement your forgiveness of others.
i don't mean to suggest that forgiveness is easy or to reduce it to a three step formula.
i realize that painful memories, emotions and relationships
may all be involved and may require further healing.
but i have found these steps helpful for jump starting that process
and setting people on the journey to freedom.
as a starting place in the pathway of forgiveness,
ONE, IDENTIFY THE PEOPLE WHO HAVE WRONGED YOU
AND THE WAY(S) THEY HAVE SINNED AGAINST YOU.
(note: would another list identifying the people i have sinned against and how be in order...?)
here's a simple way to do that:
take a blank sheet of paper and draw two lines from top to bottom,
forming three even columns down the page.
..in the left column, write the names of all those who have sinned against you,
anyone with whom you still have unresolved issues of the heart.
you know who they are. mother, father, stepparent, brother, sister, former employer, former pastor,
neighbor, son or daughter, ex mate-make the list.
then in the middle column-next to the names you've just listed
-write out the specific offense(s) each one has committed against you.
how did they wrong you? be specific.
wait, you may wonder, what's the point of bringing all this stuff back up again?
i thought we were supposed to 'forgive and forget', to bury these things.
now you're telling me to list it all!
it's important to realize that forgiveness does not mean pretending that the offence never happened.
that's not honest.
that's denial.
true forgiveness is not about mind games and dream worlds
-it's not about escaping from reality.
it's about FACING reality and dealing with it god's way.
these things that others did to you were wrong.
they have hurt you.
and God does not want you to run AWAY from your pain
but to run TO HIM in the MIDST of your pain
-to fly head-on into the full fury of it,
to face it,
to let Him meet you right where it hurts
and give you the grace to be set free from any bondage to that hurt.
but one important disclaimer here:
in encouraging you to list the ways others have sinned against you,
i am NOT suggesting that you should try dredging up
things from your past that you have no memory of, as some would counsel.
God is able-and sometimes chooses-to erase painful memories from our minds
there is no value-in fact, i think much harm can be done
-in conjuring up memories that God may have mercifully removed.
if there's someone you need to forgive,
you probably won't need to go hunting to know who it is and why.
deal with the issues you know need to be dealt with,
the ones that are clear in your mind
and trust the Lord to bring to mind any other offenses you may need to forgive.
write down any inflicted wounds from the past or present that you are consciously aware of.
don't hide from these.
see them for the genuine sins they are.
CLEAR ABOUT THIS?
now, some would perhaps stop right here.
they would think that the mere process of naming those
who have wounded you would be healing enough.
they might even suggest that you burn this list in the fireplace,
symbolically letting all the pain and suffering go up in smoke.
but i believe the bible leads us to do something else,
something deeper, something more healing and holy-
TWO, MAKE SURE YOUR CONSCIENCE IS CLEAR
TOWARD EACH OF THE INDIVIDUALS ON YOUR LIST.
that's what the third column on your paper is for.
ask yourself, 'HOW HAVE I RESPONDED TO THIS PERSON?
then record your answer.
-have you blessed them? loved them? prayed for them? forgiven them?
or would it be more honest to say that you have
withheld love from them, resented them and been angry with them?
have you given negative reports about that person who painted you in a bad light to your friends?
have you subtly retaliated against the in law or the sibling who has made your life difficult
by giving them the silent treatment
-disengaging from the relationship,
rather than pressing through to love them?
you can't really forgive until yhour conscience is clear toward those who have sinned against you,
until you've let god fashion His love in your heart toward those who have failed you.
the truth is that you're not responsible for what goes in that middle column
(assuming their offense wasn't in response to your sin against them!
you didn't ask for it,
didn't invite it,
don't deserve it.
but you ARE responsible
-solely and fully responsible
-for what goes in the third column.
and if your response has not been Christlike,
then you need to go back to that person
and seek his or her forgiveness
for the way you've sinned against them.*
*clearly, there are some situations where it would not be appropriate
to go back and establish contact with an offender.
if you are unsure, i would encourage you
to seek godly counsel from your pastor or another mature believer.
again, this line of thinking sometimes draws a knee jerk (and quite understandable) reaction:
'wait a minute!
this person sinned against ME!
and now you're saying i've got to go ask HIM for forgive ME for what i did to him?!
yes.
perhaps, of course, you've honestly done nothing wrong in your heart toward this person.
you haven't wanted revenge.
you haven't talked about here behind her back.
you haven't rolled your eyes at him when he says he's sorry.
i hope that's the case. but it's usually not.
more often than not, the OFFENDED becomes an OFFENDER
in his response to the offense.
in the mind of the one who has been offended,
that response may be completely justified:
HE DESERVES IT...IT'S HIS FAULT, NOT MINE...
regardless of what may have provoked our response,
if we have sinned against a spouse, a parent, a friend, an old acquaintance, an authority figure
-whomever-we need to ask their forgiveness just as if we were the one
who started this whole thing in the first place.
we need to take responsibility for our sinful response.
well, you acknowledge, i may have been responsible for 5 PERCENT
of what happened to break up our marriage.
but 95 PERCENT OR MORE of it was his fault!
okay,
then assume 100 percent responsibility for your '5 percent' and ask forgiveness.
you nay find, of course, as you allow God to search your heart
that the percentages are really not quite as skewed as you've
been leading yourself to believe.
granted, there are situations where we can be totally innocent of all guilt,
where we did little or absolutely nothing at all to bring this about,
situations where we've continued to forgive and move on
without holding a grudge.
but for the most part, we're quick to overlook our share of blame
-just as quick as the other person is.
that usually leaves a lot of unclaimed responsibility lying around,
where it can keep on spreading its poison, perpetuation the damage.
in the sermon on the mount, Jesus reminds us that it's a lot easier to see the failures in others' lives\
than it is to see our own needs.
we tend to look at everyone else's sins with a microscope,
while looking at our own with a telescope!
Jesus emphasizes the importance of dealing with our own sins
before we try to deal with onters' failures.
'why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye,
but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?
or how can you day to your brother,
'let me take the speck out of your eye',
when there is the log in your own eye?
you hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye,
and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye. matthew 7.3-5
this isn't to minimize what your 'brother' may have done.
it's just that it's hard to be objective about HIS sin, or effective at helping him get rid of it,
if you haven't confessed your sin.
not to speak of being hypocritical.
so be honest: has someone else's sin
begotten sin in your own life:
then confess it.
to them, if it's possible and appropriate.
not in a way that excuses you,
not in a way that blames them for pushing you to it,
not in a way that leads you into even more sin by stirring up your anger against them.
God is saying, 'you take responsibility for your part.
have you?
if not humble yourself.
go and seek forgiveness.
be sure your conscience is clear.
YOUR CHOICE
once you've identified those people who have wronged you,
once your conscience is clear with the Lord and with those individuals
-you've sought forgiveness for anything you've done to them,
either in contributing to what happened
or reacting to them with sinful attitudes and behaviors
-it's time to take the next-and what may be the hardest-step in your journey.
THREE. CHOOSE FOR FULLY FORGIVE EVERY PERSON
WHO HAS SINNED AGAINST YOU.
this is where the proverbial rubber meets the road.
this is where all the tender and wounded parts of your emotions
may cry out in self protection and protest.
and this is where the Enemy will work hard to keep you from going all the way with God
and doing what you know you need to do.
but THIS IS WHERE YOU HAVE TO GO IF YOU WANT TO BE FREE.
CHOOSE TO FORGIVE EACH INDIVIDUAL(OR GROUP)
WHO HAS SINNED AGAINST YOU.
clear their record.
press the delete button.
release them from your custody.
YOU DON'T HAVE TO FEEL LIKE IT.
YOU DON'T HAVE TO WANT TO.
but if you want to be an obedient child of God, you've got to forgive.
chances are, when you started this book, when God put it on your heart-again-
to deal with this issue that's been forefront and center in your life for so many years,
you knew we were going to get here eventually.
there's just no detour around this point in the journey to freedom in Christ.
IF YOU HOLD A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G AGAINST ANYONE, FORGIVE HIM. mark 11.25
but what if they haven't asked for forgiveness?
what if they don't think they did anything wrong?
well, sadly, their unwillingness to repent will keep them from receiving God's forgiveness
(the forgiveness that matters most)
and from having a right relationship with Him.
and it will limit their capacity to have a fully restored relationship with you and others.
but though that person's hardness will affect his well being and his relationships
until he faces and deals with his sin,
though it may keep him in bondage,
no one can force YOU to be bound as a prisoner in your own heart
-not as long as you take the bold step to forgive.
that is a choice you can and must make,
regardless of where the other person is in their journey.
as you respond to the Lord in this matter,
BE SURE NOT TO STOP SHORT
OF ACTUALLY FORGIVING YOUR OFFENDERS.
i've heard sincere, well meaning people pray,
'Lord, please HELP ME TO FORGIVE this person'
i've heard others say,
'i know i need to forgive him...'
i don't doubt their sincerity, BUT THAT'S NOT ENOUGH.
don't just ask God for help;
don't just talk about your need to forgive.
go all the way.
say, 'Lord, by Your grace and in obedience to You,
i CHOOSE to forgive-
to clear their record
to press the delete button
to release the offender
to let the offense go.
i DO forgive!
FORGIVE TERRORISTS?
gracia burnham and her husband, martin,
made that choice under circumstances that most would have considered unforgivable.
abducted by a philippine terrorist group while on a brief break from their missionary responsibilities,
this couple endured more than a year of torture, want and abuse,
being pushed and shoved in pointless circles through the tangles of a tropical jungle.
in june 2002, when the national military attempted a rescue of the hostages,
gracia escaped, wounded by freed.
martin was killed in the firefight.
after their whole long ordeal together, gracia had to walk out of the jungle alone.
in her poignant telling of their story...'in the presence of my enemies...
she takes us back through some of the brutal realities of hostage life,
nightmarish scenes it's hard to imagine anyone surviving.
the maddening confinement of being chained to a tree for hours,
sleeping straight up, forced to beg for daily needs.
the pain of being wracked with incessant diarrhea,
heightened by the indignity of having no place to retreat in private,
no means of cleaning herself,
and no escape from the unsanitary conditions that only worsened the disease.
the exhaustion of being strapped down with 50 pound loads of gear
to walk miles over rugged ground, with precious little on the outside to shield away the elements
and even less in their stomachs to sustain their weak, weary bodies.
torture.
and when not mortally afraid-anger.
as martin and i squatted around the cooking fire waiting for our portion,
we would carefully watch the server pile rice on other plates,
but then give us only two thirds of a cupful,
solely because we were non filipino and non muslim.
i wanted to scream.
yet even in the screeching, relentless jungle,
even with heavily armed captors laughing and poking fun
-men who had no right to be so callously, so coldheartedly standing between gracia and home,
between gracia and her children, between gracia and a warm bath or a home cooked meal
-even in these extreme conditions,
God was working in gracia's heart.
'..i found that as long as i blamed the abu sayyaf (the group holding them hostage),
my heart remained in turmoil.
i blamed the terrorists
i blamed the philippine military for their ineptness
i blamed the american government for not waving some magic wand to free us
i even blamed God because...
well,
He's in control of everything, isn't He?
but gradually her perspective began to change:
' began to realize that my resentment wasn't serving any useful purpose...
anger in the face of trauma is understandable.
but that doesn't make it productive...
the alternative, of course, was to forgive,
even without the benefit of an apology from the offender.
i could CHOOSE to forgive, all by myself.
and as she forgave, God did again what He does so well.
her anger cooled down.
the hurt began easing away.
but then a new day would dawn, she admits, and a new injustice would erupt.
i would be faced with a fresh need to forgive.
this was a conscious decision i would have to make and remake as time went by.
in fact, it became a pattern.
and therein lay a path back to self control and composure.
i did not pray, 'God help me forgive, she recalls.
to do so would have been to dodge my own responsibility...
the task was squarely mine, although ONCE I CHOSE TO OBEY,
GOD CERTAINLY GAVE ME THE STRENGTH TO DO SO.
gracia is safely back home now in a small kansas town,
raising here three children,
living a life that's more in line with what we can relate to and understand.
her battles today aren't the rigors of hostage survival
but the everyday trauma of a kid who keeps forgetting to take the trash out to the curb,
as friend who makes a derogatory wisecrack,
some family member who says something unkind.
but we would tell you: the same forgiveness model applies.
we identify the sin.
we clear our conscience toward the offender.
we choose-yes, Lord, we choose-to forgive.
FOR BETTER AND THE WORST
do you still think you just can't do it?
do you think your situation is just too hard?
several years ago, i watched a dear friend go through deep waters in this whole matter of forgiveness
-not just once, but again and again and again.
i vividly recall the day her husband of 23 years confessed to her
that he had been involved in a sexual affair with another woman for 6 months.
that part-the seer fact that he had broken their wedding vows-was bad enough.
but to add salt to the wound,
he wasn't sure if he was ready to give it up or what he was going to do about it.
things went on pretty much the same way for more than a year.
he would tell me the affair was over, she wrote recently as she rehearsed the story,
but all along he still had it going.
he actually showed no evidence of true brokenness and grief over his sin
and continued in it, sometimes almost flaunting it in my face.
this hurt me and our children more than i could ever describe.
but somehow, God gave this brokenhearted wife the grace to cling to the Lord,
to forgive her wayward husband
and to keep loving him faithfully,
even in the midst of her intense pain with his apparent lack of sorrow over his sin.
i didn't FEEL forgiving at first, she said.
my initial reaction was extreme anger, then great hurt.
but i remember that first night after finding out about the affair,
i fell on my face before God with an open bible and poured out my heart to Him.
i did not understand why God would allow this to happen to me,
but i did know that it had to pass through His loving hands to get to me
and that He wanted to use it for good in some way and for His ultimate glory.
I CHOSE TO FORGIVE MY HUSBAND THAT NIGHT,
even though he had not asked me for it,
and though i was trembling all over and almost numb with pain.
i could only think of Christ on the cross and
how He asked His Father to forgive those who were killing Him.
so was that the end of it?
once she chose to forgive, did their home become a happy place again,
where everyone interacted freely and looked forward to game night on fridays?
no. 'over those next 13 months, there were many more times when i would be devastated
by something my husband did or said in relation to the affair,
yet God continued to enable me to show him forgiveness
(note: what did that 'look/feel like' to him i wonder? ...like he NEVER sinned...)
even when he was still living in sin.
i could never 'work up' forgiveness like that.
i am weak and sinful,
and i realized during those tough times
that God was pouring His grace out on me to give me the ability to forgive.
in the midst of this painful process, as my friend chose the pathway of forgiveness,
she experienced the presence and power of God in an extraordinary way:
something amazing happened in my life as i continued to forgive my husband.
God gave me such freedom and joy in the midst of the pain i was experiencing.
somehow God let me see the whole experience,
not as something to despise, but as a GIFT TO EMBRACE.
there's no way, humanly speaking, to explain it.
God truly allowed me to rejoice in my suffering
and to see it as an opportunity to suffer
in a very small way as He had when He was rejected.
these are not the word of a bible teacher dealing with theory.
this is the testimony of a woman who has been there,
who knows what it feels like, what it costs, what it means
...a woman whose faith has been tried in the furnace of affliction and has come forth as gold.
in time, God mercifully brought her husband to genuine repentance
and graciously restored his broken life and their marriage
-something i am convinced never would have happened apart
from the willingness of this wounded wife to forgive (and keep on forgiving)
-long before she would see the outcome
or had any assurance that his heart would ever be changed.
here's how she concluded her written testimony:
'when we choose to forgive others,
even when they are not broken themselves,
God pours out freedom, grace, peace, joy, love
-and even forgiveness itself into our hearts.
it takes your breath away when you experience it yourself.
IT TAKES YOU TO DEPTHS WITH GOD
THAT YOU NEVER COULD HAVE REACHED
EXCEPT THROUGH THIS MYSTERIOUS PATH.
wow.
do you realize what that means?
whatever you are going through,
however great or small
the wrong that has been done to you,
the choice to forgive could mean your most precious days with the Lord
are right in front of you.
yes forgiveness is supernatural.
yes, it's something only God can do.
(note: is it the same for every other thing He commands me to do?)
yes, it is far beyond our flesh and blood ability.
but if you are a child of God, you have been infused with the same power
that He 'worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dad' ephesians 1.20
-think of that!
that means you have His limitless power within you
-supernatural ability to extend forgiveness for 'unforgivable' offences.
by His enabling power, you can forgive others with the very grace and forgiveness
that you have received from God for YOUR sins.
so choose it!
do it!
don't wait to feel like it or to figure out how it will all work out.
ultimately, forgiveness is not an emotion.
it is an act of your will-
and act of faith.
don't harbor that bitterness for even one more day.
your issue may be a monumental one like some of those you've read in this book-or worse.
or it may be something that seems insignificant by comparison-
so minor that you may have convinced yourself its not such a big deal
-that it's okay to continue on with this simmering resentment.
whether the offense is so large that you think you CAN'T forgive,
either way,
you'll stay in prison until you release it
into the cleansing stream of God's fathomless mercy and
LET.....IT......GO!
this is His will for you in Christ Jesus.
and you can chose to TAKE HOLD OF IT!
if you've still not taken that plunge into the ocean of His forgiveness,
cry out to Him right now:
Oh,God, for Jesus' sake-as You have forgiven me,
i choose to forgive him.
i choose to forgive her.
i choose to forgive EACH person who has sinned against me.
I CHOOSE TO FORGIVE!
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