It Starts Small

I pondered bitterness. I hated the idea that I knew what wrath was. Anger. Clamoring. Evil speaking. I knew them all because no matter how much I tried to bottle those things up, every now and then, it would slip out.

Being on the receiving end of physical, emotional, and verbal abuse, I hate these things. I knew what words could do to a person. I knew what hands could do to a person. I new what threats and promises of hate could do to a person. It’s crushing, especially when it comes from the very people you are under authority of.

I thought about the pound of flesh. I didn’t want revenge on any of these people. Honestly, I just wanted to know why? why did you do or say these things? Am I not just as human as you are? When did it occur to you that you had the right to do these things? When was it okay in your mind to speak or do such horrible things?

Forgiveness. I had sat all these years in a shack waiting for all these people to come say they were sorry for what they had done and explain themselves to me. To give me understanding in all these things. It never occurred to me, that I could just simply forgive without their asking. In some cases, I’ll never get that moment. In others I hope one day to have understanding.

And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. Matthew 6:12

Unforgiveness, an unforgiving spirit is what holds back the forgiveness of God. I believe that when we let the sun go down on our sin, we let Satan in to destroy us. He empowers us with hate. He allows us to imprison ourselves in our own hate towards others.

When you forgive, you set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you. There are two enemies in unforgiveness. Guilt is my debt I owe and bitterness is the debt owed by others. Guilt and bitterness imprisoned me.

I’ve come to believe the greatest gift we have to give is forgiveness of debt. By debt, I mean sin. As the verse above speaks, my sin puts me in debt with God. I receive freedom of my debt when God forgives me. Our debtors are those we forgive. Forgiveness of them is canceling their debt just as God cancels mine. Forgiveness is bearing the debt of another (Just as Christ bear mine) and I am the one that pays the debt.

My salvation was free to me because Christ pays my debt with his life.

In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace; Ephesians 1:7

When God forgives me, I MUST forgive others just as I have been forgiven. If I withhold forgiveness I dam up the stream of forgiveness God has for me.

Why must I forgive? In verse 12, the word “as” means in the same manor. So just as I ask for forgiveness, I must also give forgiveness. God is very clear on the matter. God has forgiven me, so I must forgive others. It is by the grace of God I am forgiven. When I forgive, I am giving that same grace that was given to me. God is also very clear that if we don’t forgive, we can no longer be forgiven.

In a sense, God will treat us as we treat others. Thinking back to that verse 12, we are telling God, forgive me like I forgive others. If we say, I’ll forgive them, but never have anything to do with them, that is what God will do to us. He will forgive and have nothing to do with us. If we withhold forgiveness, He withholds it from us.

Unforgiveness brings personal harm and grief. It keeps us in a prison. It opens the door the becoming a pawn of satan and he knows all to well how to get us to be the hate he desires us to be. You speak and do acts of harm to yourself and others. This is the bitterness I wrote about yesterday. It’s acid to your very mind and body.

Unforgiveness can be lead to broken relationships. There can be no reconciliation without forgiveness. We don’t have the supreme power to reconcile ourselves, it is God who reconciles us. Withholding reconciliation is just another way to say I don’t forgive you. Can you imagine if God said I’m not going to forgive you or if he never sent Jesus to reconcile us to Him?

Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. Matthew 18:15

I began to see that forgiveness comes with a cost. Jesus is our ultimate example of forgiveness. I need to pay the same price Jesus did for me. Jesus forgave me freely. He didn’t exact revenge or get his pound of flesh and then forgive me. He forgave me freely. In the verse above, I believe it’s saying to seek immediately to forgive. Don’t hold it back and wait for the other person. I’ve learned, sometimes you just have to forgive because they’ll never confess their fault and sin. You just have to forgive. Sometimes that means forgiving an limitless amount of times. Hold on to hope that someday they repent and seek forgiveness. Forgiving others before they ask is storing a blessing in heaven to them.

I’ve learned through scripture and Jesus you have to forgive fully. Pride ignores the hurt and pain and quickly says you are forgiven. You don’t want the other person to know that you’re hurting. Forgiveness is not politenesses. It’s not living in denial that they hurt you. It’s not excusing their behavior or words. It’s not forgetting. Forgetting is the result of forgiveness. Jesus doesn’t passively forgive us. He fully forgives us.

Forgiveness is final. Jesus doesn’t keep a stamp book of all we’ve done wrong. Only satan keeps a stamp book and he loves to remind us of our past sins. Jesus doesn’t cash them in to guilt us or shame us. Only satan try’s to fill us with guilt and shame. Jesus’ forgiveness is final and our forgiveness needs to be final. A great test is to ask yourself if you keep bringing it up. If it’s something you use to hang over another person and keep from reconciling a relationship, then you haven’t truly forgiven that person.

Forgiveness is worked through our salvation.

12 Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. 13 For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. Philippians 2:12-13

God works through me to find forgiveness. God gives me the desire and dynamic to forgive. God’s love, his supernatural love flows through me to love the other person. It’s only through God’s love we can pay the debt owed to us.

Forgiveness is divine!

I’ve spoken casual forgiveness but never had a true forgiveness for all these things. I couldn’t because the love of God wasn’t filling my heart. It’s only by truly understanding how much God loves and forgives me that I can start to begin how to forgive others. Until I had truly found repentance I couldn’t forgive or be forgiven.

I closed my eyes and pondered upon all these things. I walked to the heap of faces and memories. I began to pull them out one by one and set them in a line in front of me. I took a step back and looked upon all of these people.

My heart was instantly filled with sadness. Not sadness from hurt or pain, I was sad for these people. I thought it was an odd thing to feel. Once I could barely think about these people or situations, but now I could just look at them up close and I felt sad. Jesus, is this what you feel when you looked upon me? Jesus, I’ve been waiting for decades, in some cases, for understanding of these things and people. I don’t understand why, but I know the Who.

Jesus spoke, what do you see in them?