Tag: Forgiveness

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About Forgiveness of Self

Sober now for over 30 years, Bill1 attends Alcohol Anonymous (AA) meetings several times each week where he and others stand together against their common enemy, addiction. Bill occasionally shares with me the wit and wisdom of AA, tidbits to savor amid life’s trials and temptations, including this little homespun gem: “Not accepting forgiveness is a way of keeping the focus on yourself.” The point is a good one, and it ushers us to an important topic: the popular notion of self-forgiveness, or “the need to forgive ourselves.” Scripture does not address the assertion, but it speaks plenty about for God’s higher, better way. Let’s look.

There is this pattern in Scripture: Forgiveness comes not from the offender, but from those we offend, be they our peers and/or our God. In His teaching on prayer, for instance, Jesus petitioned, “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.”2 Paul likewise exhorts believers, “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”3 And in His parable about the unmerciful servant, Jesus illustrates the workings of forgiveness: Though it was within the servant’s ability to forgive his coworker’s debt, he lacked the power to absolve his own—only the king could do that.4 Do you see the common thread here? We are not our own debtors; our debt forgiveness—the forgiveness of our “selves”—comes hopefully from others and most assuredly from God.

Then what must we do but receive from God in faith what is already ours in Christ: forgiveness. Indeed, boldly so, for divine forgiveness is complete and total. “God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross.”5 Receive this gift. Moreover, Jesus’ sacrificial work for us is sufficient, hence “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”6 Rest in this reality. And when we do sin, God is “faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”7 Trust in His promise. For there is nothing more we must do—indeed there is nothing more we can do—than to trust, receive, and rest in the divine forgiveness that is already ours in Christ Jesus.

Jesus, thank You for sacrificing Your body and blood for my sins. Grace me to trust, receive and rest in Your atoning work. I rejoice, for forgiveness is mine through Your selfless love. Amen.

1 This name is changed for privacy purposes.
2 Matthew 6:12 KJV
3 Ephesians 4:32 NIV
4 See the parable of the unmerciful servant in Matthew 18:21-35 NIV.
5 Colossians 2:13-14 NLT
6 Romans 8:1-2 NIV
7 1 John 1:8-9 ESV

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Forgiveness Pays a Bonus

Manny1 is the kind of prisoner for whom I ache most: socially awkward, defenseless, and essentially a loner, not necessarily because he wants to be, but because society has relegated him to its farthest margins—an outcast of the outcast. When he approached me at a weekly Kairos gathering at the prison one evening, I was happy to engage, but it was when he began to talk about forgiveness that he captured my rapt attention. Manny recalled a season when two inmates oppressed him—he didn’t say how and I didn’t ask. Life was miserable in this way, but he sensed God telling him, “You must forgive them.” So, Manny obeyed. “When I forgave them,” he recalled, “it was like this several-hundred-pound weight just lifted from my chest. I no longer hold anything against them.” His few friends in lockup were incredulous: “Why did you forgive them?” “God told me to,” replied this forgotten man who humbly believed and did as he was told. How like God, to choose the incarcerated as testimony to inner freedom.

We’ve all witnessed grudges nursed for far lesser offenses. Have you ever heard someone say, “God might forgive them, but I won’t”? Have we ever said it—or something like it—ourselves, whether silently or aloud? God says it’s not OK. To His audience on the hillside, Jesus taught, “If you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”2 Give grace, receive grace. Then to the Ephesians—and vital for believers everywhere and of all times—Paul writes, “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”3 Receive grace, give grace.

Forgiveness is a response of obedience taken in faith, regardless of feeling. And here’s the thing: Forgiveness always pays a bonus. For when from the heart we truly release others from their moral debt to us, our burden of guilt and the weight of our unforgiveness are lifted as well. And whether we forgive seven times or seventy-seven,4 each time we are surprised by the peace and joy of releasing “a burden too heavy to bear.”5

So may this from Paul be the inclination of our hearts redeemed: “Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.”6

Manny did, and he’s still talking about it.

Father, forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.7 In Christ we live and in Him we pray. Amen.

1 This name is changed for privacy purposes.
2 Matthew 6:14-15 NIV
3 Ephesians 4:31-32 ESV
4 Matthew 18:21-22 NIV
5 Psalm 38:4 NLT
6 Colossians 3:13 NLT
7 Matthew 6:12 KJV

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The Heart of the Matter

“When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him there. . . Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” — Luke 23:33-34 NIV

Did you ever notice?

Amid the extreme chaos of the most pivotal day in human history — the Son of God betrayed, mocked, misrepresented, beaten, surrendered in appeasement, and now suffering an excruciating death — Jesus interceded to His Father on behalf of His tormentors: “Father, forgive them.” But did you ever notice that they never asked? His enemies never asked Jesus for forgiveness, yet He pleaded it on their behalf anyway. How opposite our natural tendency to release a grudge only at the fickle price of a suitable apology.

We could say, “Well, Jesus is God; mere mortals are not built that way.” True, we are not; our self-will demands we live life on our terms and not God’s. But let us witness another execution, the stoning of Stephen. His capital crime? Declaring Jesus to be standing at the right hand of God. Listen to Luke’s historic account of this believer’s last words. “As they stoned him, Stephen prayed, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.’ He fell to his knees, shouting, ‘Lord, don’t charge them with this sin!’ And with that, he died.”1 Had his self-appointed executioners asked for forgiveness? No. But Stephen forgave them anyway and he petitioned Jesus to do the same. Instead of appealing for justice, he cried out for mercy.

How do we reach such a point where harbored animosity ebbs and the tide of charity floods its place? Consider Luke’s description of Stephen — “a man full of God’s grace and power.”2 Therein lies the spiritual means for the naturally impossible: As we realize the depth of our sin and the divine price at which it is expunged, we grow in our embrace of God’s grace. This grace overflows its human reservoirs, pouring over in its many forms to others. When the scorned woman anointed Jesus’ feet and wiped them with her tears, for instance, Jesus said to her antagonists, “She was forgiven many, many sins, and so she is very, very grateful.”3 The grace of forgiveness liberates us this way.

Spend some time today considering and appreciating God’s undeserved, yet limitless favor toward you. In humility before Him, think also of those who need to experience your forgiveness, even if they haven’t asked for it. Then, in God’s grace and power, release them for good.

“Be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.” — Ephesians 4:32 NASB

Father, Your goodness and faithfulness toward me, a sinner, is humbling. Indwell me through Your Spirit of grace and power, that I would be a vessel of grace and forgiveness to others. In Christ I pray. Amen.

1 Acts 7:59-60 NLT, emphasis added
2 Acts 6:8 ESV, emphasis added
3 Luke 7:47 The Message