adminI am sure you have heard somebody hurtfully say, “There’s no way I can forgive him for what he has done. This time he knew exactly what he was doing.” This shows clearly that we as Christians often cannot or we will not forgive. Often the reason is that we have accepted a counterfeit forgiveness. It is premised in forgetting after one has forgiven.
Have you ever asked yourself this question, “When the books are opened on the great day of judgment described in Revelation 20:12, will my sins be recorded there? Has God suffered eternal amnesia? Is it impossible for Him to remember?” No. God chooses not to remember my sins. The New Testament twice cites Jeremiah 31:34 (in Hebrews 8:12 and 10:17), as if to emphasise the point: “I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”
“Not remembering” is by no means equal to “forgetting absolutely.” It means not making an effort to recall something to mind.
God has not wiped out His memory banks concerning our sins; rather, He has chosen not to call them to mind against us again. I believe my sins are recorded in God’s books, but over each one is written in bold red letters “Forgiven.”
This distinction between forgiveness and still having painful memories is crucial. When we have forgiven someone, we choose not to call a person’s sins to mind against him. Yet until God’s healing is fully worked in our minds, the memory of the hurt and pain may overwhelm us again and again.
The memory and the pain of what they did to us may still be within us but we can choose not to bring it up. God does not remember the abortions, thefts and murders we made. He instead has covered them under the blood of forgiveness shed by His Son Jesus the Christ. So for you and me forgiveness does not require forgetting; only choosing not to call to mind repeatedly while God heals the memories.
As you forgive take the cue from the Father in Heaven and not from the mere mortals around us. If we are to understand what forgiveness is, we must see it as God sees it.
God did not excuse our sins. If it would have been enough to cite our inherent weakness or some extenuating circumstances, the Father would never have sent His Son to suffer the torture of crucifixion. God does not pretend. Our sinfulness is inexcusable. The only rebuttal to sin is the bold, unilateral deed of the Offended One: “For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18). That is why the Apostle Paul writes to the Romans and says, “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8, NIV).
Forgiveness is the outworking of God’s love. Forgiveness is pardoning one who has truly wronged us, “Just as God in Christ also has forgiven you” (Ephesians 4:32, NASB).
We cannot separate God’s forgiveness of us from our willingness to forgive those who have injured us. Is that not why we pray, “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors” (Matthew 6:12, KJV).
What is forgiveness, then? It is a choice. It is a faith decision not to hold a sin against a person any longer. It is not based on merit, but on grace. Its model is the cross. We dare not confuse it with emotion. You do not forgive because you feel like. Jesus Christ did not feel like dying for you and me.
Although feeling will eventually follow if we maintain faith’s resolve despite temptations to bitterness, the feeling is not the forgiveness. It may be agony even to think about forgiving someone, but God will gradually enable us if we allow Him. And the very decision to forgive releases God’s power to restore our damaged emotions. Forgiveness heals the forgiver even.
Jesus leaves no room for an unforgiving spirit, even if the offender never repents or asks for forgiveness. He commands us to “Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you in order that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matthew 5:44-45, NASB).
The Apostle Paul makes it clear that so long as we retain the right to vengeance, we cannot really love our enemies (Romans 12:9). We must let go of the offense and let it be washed into the river of God’s justice, that it may not pollute our springs. Paul concludes, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (vs. 21).
Christians must forgive and do so unconditionally. Jesus told the parable of a governor who owed millions to his king. But he forfeited the king’s offer to forgive the debt by his own refusal to cancel a twenty dollar debt. As a result, he was imprisoned and tortured until he should pay the last penny. Jesus’ application to his disciples is unmistakable, “So shall my heavenly Father also do to you, if each of you does not forgive his brother from your heart” (Matthew 18:35).
Years ago one George Herbert summed it up with the words, “He that cannot forgive others breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass if he would ever reach Heaven; for everyone has needed to be forgiven.”
Forgiving is not easy. Like our Father, we must face those who hurt us squarely and pardon them boldly, enabled by His grace. It is not meant to be easy but it is possible.
Shalom!
Online Reporter
derick.khumalo