Matt. 6:14, "For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins".
In Matthew 18 :21-35 Jesus told a story about a servant who owed his master an astronomical amount of money, millions of dollars. Because the servant begged for mercy his master forgave the debt. Later, this servant found a fellow servant who owed him a small amount of money. When the other servant couldn't pay and begged for mercy, he refused to be merciful and had him thrown into prison. The story ends with the first servant being brought back before his master and being thrown into prison. The last verse leaves no question, (vs.35) "This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart". Unforgiveness is sin! In fact, it is an unpardonable sin.
When you look at this narrative something that stands out is the first servant's disregard for what his master has just done for him. He doesn't seem to realize the magnitude of the debt he owed. And this brings up an important point:
It costs to forgive...A LOT!!
Scholars have estimated that ten thousand talents may have been anywhere between 15 and 50 million dollars. Debt does not simply disappear. It has to be accounteed for in some way. In this story the master absorbs the debt himself in order to forgive his servant. It cost the master all of that money to set his servant free. Forgiveness is not pretending that nothing is wrong or that it's no big deal so don't worry about it. It begins with a full acknowledgment that someone has wronged you and hurt you in some way, and legally, you have every right to demand justice. Forgiveness is waiving that right and absorbing the cost yourself in order to set the offending person free.
I believe that the biggest obstacle to our being able to forgive is that we don't realize the awfulness of our own sin and just what it cost our savior to set us free. Jesus illustrated this in Luke 7:41-43,
"Two men owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he cancelled the debts of both. Now which one of them will love him more?"
Simon replied, "I suppose the one who had the bigger debt cancelled."
"You have judged correctly," Jesus answered.
Sometimes the problem, for me anyway, is one of perspective. I think of myself as the one who owed fifty danarii when in reality I am the one who owed five hundred. In other words, I don't think I'm such a bad person because, after all, I didn't do what THEY did. But the reality is, my sins put Jesus on the cross. When I see it from that perspective, I can see what an insult it is to my savior that I should have the audacity to think I have the right to demand justice and not forgive others, when he waived his own right to demand justice in order to forgive me.
Forgiveness and reconciliation
One question that always comes up is, does forgiveness mean reconciliation. They are not the same thing. Just because you forgive someone does not mean that a relationship can be restored. If there is no indication that the offending party sees that they have done anything wrong and are making no good faith effort to make necessary changes, You can extend forgiveness, but there really cannot be a relationship because the bahavior which broke the relationship will coninue to destroy it. We must be careful, however that the "rebuilding trust" is not simply a smokescreen to hide the fact that one hasn't truly forgiven the other person. When I hear someone say, "I forgave him but it takes time to rebuild trust". I invariably want to ask how long it's been since the person displayed the offensive behavior. If they say almost twenty years (That's no joke. I've seen it) I would suspect that they are only fooling themselves. They haven't forgiven the other person.
I would also suppose that, in some cases, too much "water has flowed over the dam" and forgiveness simply means setting the other person free and blessing them as they go. In a case of infedelity, where the offending spouse returns to ask forgiveness even though they are now remarried, would be an example. The individuals will simply have to move on.
This all sounds so good, but I can't do it.
I'll let you in on a little secret. If I write about something like this, it's because it's a personal struggle for me. If it weren't I wouldn't think about it enough to bother writing about it. This is HUGE for me an I don't have a quick and easy answer. But I know the one who does have the answers. And I think he gave it to us in 1 John 1:9,
"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness"
If you can't forgive someone, tell your heavenly father. That's what confession is. Maybe you don't even want to forgive. Tell him that too. Phillipians 2:13 says, "For it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good pleasure". The fact is we DON'T have it in us to desire to do God's will. He has to put that desire in us; including the desire and ability to forgive. It must begin with confession. Complete, brutally honest confession. Acknowledge that unforgiveness is sin and that you are guilty. And then embrace his promise that he will do what he said; forgive us and purify us from the unrighteousness of unforgiveness.
But what if we are still struggling with being able to truly forgive from our hearts? Even though we now have a new identity in Christ we still have our old nature to deal with. And we still get it wrong sometimes. So here's one more passage. Psalm 103:13-14, "As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers we are dust." He remembers that we are weak and frail, even though sometimes we forget. It is by his grace that we are saved and it is sufficient for us. Lean on him and trust him. May God bless each and every one of you.
No comments:
Post a Comment