Tag: Paul Nordman

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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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How Obedience Overcomes Reluctance

I sometimes quip about my wife, “Peggy’s not happy if she’s not helping.” Peggy is ever ready to come to one’s aid, and she can detect an SOS a mile away. I, on the other hand . . . well, let’s just say I’m less inclined to offer my services, which I confess is an outcropping of my sin nature. There was an era, for instance, when after Adult Sunday School, the teacher would ask for volunteers to stay after class and stack the chairs onto their wheeled dollies. Our ensuing conversation would go like this:

Peggy: “Let’s stay and stack chairs.”
Paul: “I don’t want to stay and stack chairs. They have enough help already.”

Then we’d stay and stack chairs.

Yet over time, I began to enjoy helping people. Could it be I received the spiritual gift of “helps”1 by marriage? Kidding aside, I am grateful for the ongoing transformation from passive indifference to active care. This is God’s doing.

It is also His will — that learning would lead to action, and faith engender obedience. Writing to Roman believers, Paul both began and closed his letter by noting our summons to “the obedience that comes from faith.”2 The apostle likewise taught the Ephesians that we are “created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”3 Good works, then, are also gifts —meaningful things we get to do for Kingdom glory — and doing them is the natural offshoot of true belief.

But what if most deeply we are reluctant to act in obedience? Most likely, we are. First, don’t be surprised at the dissonance within, for “the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other.”4 The battle is a fact; accept it. Knowing this, watch out for temptations that tantalize our flesh, our sin nature. Peter exhorts God’s people, “Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil,”5 who would entice us to elevate self above all else. Then when tempted, choose rightly. We will either be “slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness,”6 so today when you hear the Spirit’s voice, choose “yes.” And all the while, trust God’s transformational work in your life: “Rest assured it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”7 He is pleased to transform us, even our reluctance. He will do it, so rejoice. And do what He leads you to do.

“You were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.” — Galatians 5:13 ESV

Father, thank You for Your opportunities to serve You, the impactful works You prepare for us in advance. Strengthen us to pursue them in great joy. In Christ we pray. Amen.

1 See 1 Corinthians 12:28 NIV.
2 Romans 1:5 NIV; Romans 16:26 NIV
3 Ephesians 2:10 NIV
4 Galatians 5:17 NIV
5 1 Peter 5:8 NLT
6 Romans 6:16 NIV
7 Philippians 2:13 ESV