Fighting Forgiveness

Why do we fight forgiveness so much? It happens on both sides of the conversation, giving and receiving. We fight receiving it because we do not want to OWE someone something. We feel we deserve their anger, frustration, punishment, etc. Once we get the consequences of our actions we feel justified and we are relieved...sometimes...for a time. We also fight giving it because we think it will empower them to act repeatedly in such ways, treating us as less than human. We become vulnerable and vulnerable is a scary place to live.

One question that stuck out from our discussion on Wednesday I would like to pose before you so that you can incorporate this into family discussion as well as simply process it personally. Here is the question: "How do you really forgive someone without just saying what they did to you is OK?"

This developed quite a response and meaningful conversation. Some other questions that this raised were:
   What does it mean to forgive someone?
   How does God forgive us?
   What does it mean to forgive someone '70x7 times'?
   Is it always necessary to tell the person they are forgiven?

It is something we wrestle with and somehow we think that we are supposed to forgive AND forget. It is impossible to erase memories and scars people impose upon us, especially when we HAD a relationship with them. So we are to forgive but we let the memory remind us of what grace looks like and how God forgives us.

Think of the unmerciful servant in Matt 18. Peter asked this question of the appropriate amount of forgiveness extensions to give someone. Jesus tells this parable. A servant owes thousands of dollars debt to his master. The master forgives it. A man owes $5 to this servant who was just excused of his debt. The servant shows no grace and throws the man in jail for $5.

God has forgiven us in the most exponential way, saving our sinful souls from death. We have a hard time forgiving other sinful souls for cutting us off in traffic, calling us a hurtful name, stealing from us, or hurting us. It doesn't quite add up, does it.

We know that forgiveness means the score IS settled.
We believe that forgiveness only comes if we are in Christ. There is no way to forgive like God unless He is living in us.
We understand that we MUST forgive in order for God to forgive us.

This isn't something EASY or LIGHT but necessary and freeing. How will you forgive today? WHO do you need to forgive right now?

Living forgiven means we will forgive others. Then we will experience real freedom in Christ.