Yet Jesus does not forgive the unrepentant.
To believe otherwise is to believe in universalism.
Forgiveness is not a unilateral action, it is bilateral.
The offended protests to the offender.
The offender responds either with repentance or with rejection of the offence.
If There is repentance we Must forgive. If there is no repentance we can continue to talk about the offenders action/words etc to explain the offended hurt, but if the offender does not recognise what they have done eventually the offended one does not have to just forgive, but they hand the offender, the situation, the hurt, their emotions All over to God to deal with and they pray for the good of the offender.
On one hand, forgiveness does seem like something we’re called to move toward, even when it’s hard and the other person hasn’t changed. On the other hand, it’s also true that real hurt can make that process take time.
For me, it’s less of a single moment and more of a process. Sometimes it starts with just being willing to let go a little, even if the full feeling of forgiveness isn’t there yet.
What about your own forgiveness, what was God’s forgiveness of you like? Was it a single decisive moment, or does God forgive little by little until he makes it the whole way?
I know we are not God, and we do not posess His capabilities, but His expectation for us is His Holiness, and Holiness is what we are called to; called to both practice and profess.
“For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” (Matthew 6:14-15)
This passage seems to endorse our decisive forgiveness, not a protracted forgiveness. But, I’m sure, God already decisively forgives our inability to forgive as He does.
My two cents, (but probably not worth that much)
KP
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Whoa, I resemble those remarks! I have been betrayed with pain in big ways. Things that, people generally are not forgiven of (Pre-Walk w/Christ). They stole a lot of money from me, way too much. The worst part about it was it wasn’t a stranger, I’ve never been robbed I carry a pistol and try to not to have to defend myself! It’s worked so far for me. I haven’t ever shot anyone yet. Hope and pray that I never have to. But I digress…
Yeah, it was betrayal by someone close to me that I trusted. Let me tell ya we aint friends no more. Life goes on and eventually I began walking with the Lord and reading His Word. I read that we are to forgive those who wrong us. Uh-Oh, I knew who I had not forgiven. But it felt justified inside of me. Forgive your enemies. Forgive those who trespass against you. I didn’t really want to as it felt good to me (at the time!)
So it was on my heart to learn why the Lord say such a thing, and more than once! I prayed about it and told God I can’t forgive them for that…So He, one way or another, taught me why we are to forgive them and the reason is twofold. Not only was it a good exercise in Learning to Love and be Compassionate to other souls but the second reason is that it damages our heart to hold a seed of bitterness against anyone. If you then leave it alone and go on with your life, it grows into a root of bitterness. Scripture tells us to diligently guard our heart, and not forgiving someone damages our heart.
No wonder scripture tells us to bless our enemies, because it prolly grows the opposite of a root of bitterness within our heart. It grows our heart of Love. So I still didn’t want to forgive them! Oh they hit me hard. But I knew I had to for their ake and my sake. So prayed and said, Lord I forgive this person and please forgive me if I am lying. I want to forgive this person so I make it an act of my will to forgive them even if I do not feel the forgiveness within me….Help me Lord! And nothing happened except a made a dubious prayer. SO I did the same thing and prayed the same thing the next day, and the next day after that, and, you get the picture. It had sort of became a routine thing for me to pray and by an act of my will, forgive him. And about two weeks or so I prayed it again and when I said my Amen I realized that, I can feel it in my heart that I have forgiven them…!
Wow, what a lesson! Praise the Lord!! So, the moral of the story is, diligently guard your heart.
Proverbs 4:22-24
**22 **for they bring life to those who find them,
and healing to their whole body.
**23 **Guard your heart above all else,
for it determines the course of your life.
**24 **Avoid all perverse talk;
stay away from corrupt speech…./NLT
So according to that, do not even speak privately against those you need to forgive.
Does anyone know any mean older people? (That bitter old woman, that man has a very poor attitude!) (Those people)…are the ones who sometime in their life, they had someone hurt them and wrong them very bad. And they never forgot it and never forgave them. And so the root of bitterness in their heart grew into a Tree over time. And when your whole heart is full of bitterness, that’s who they become!
Pray for those people. It wasn’t their fault, they’re just dumb humans like all of us. It was the evil spirits behind those people, egging them on to do this guy wrong do him wrong he deserves it! And sometimes they people listen to them.
Guard your Heart!!
I think forgiveness and how to forgive isn’t something understood by everyone. We forgive for ourselves and God, not as a benefit to another person. Our relationship with God is tied to our relationship with other people. (1 John 4:20), and God wants us to relate to people on the same basis as He relates to us.
Reconciliation is not a part of forgiveness, and trust is not a part of forgiveness. It isn’t even necessary for the other party to know you have forgiven them. The real issue is not between us and them, but between us and God. It’s God who has commanded that we forgive and it is us who are released from bitterness and anger. We forgive for our own sake. Not for the sake of the one who hurt us.
The parable in Matthew 18 is all about a man who had been forgiven much and refused to forgive little. He was forgiven for a debt he could never repay. When it came time to extend forgiveness, he refused. The jailer is Satan and the word ‘torture’ refers to spiritual torture. It’s the same word the demon used in Mark 5:7. To not forgive opens a door to the enemy’s influence in our life.
It’s the same for us. We’ve been forgiven much. Jesus asks us to forgive in turn. That doesn’t mean it’s easy or that it’s a one shot deal. We’re to forgive from the heart so our emotions are involved. We forgive to stop the pain of what they did or said. We forgive to set ourself free. We’re not setting them free. We’re setting ourselves free.
Forgiveness doesn’t mean forgetting or saying it doesn’t matter. It does matter and we don’t forget. We don’t seek revenge when someone has hurt us. “Vengeance is mine, says the Lord. I will repay”. They will either come to Christ and be forgiven, or they will die in their sins. In either case, it’s the Lord who will deal with them, not us. Romans 12:19
And we don’t make excuses for the one who hurt us. We don’t say we understand why they did what they did. We don’t justify it and we don’t sit and wonder if it was wrong. If we were hurt or offended, then we need to forgive.
Sometimes forgiveness may mean living with the consequences of what that person did to you. That’s not fair, but we have to do it anyways. The choice we have is to live in the bondage of bitterness or the freedom that forgiveness brings.
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And visa-versa my iron-sharpening friend.
K