Forgiving On My Terms
Luke 17:3-5 Amplified Bible (AMP)
3Pay attention and always be on your guard [looking out for one another]. If your brother sins (misses the mark), solemnly tell him so and reprove him, and if he repents (feels sorry for having sinned), forgive him.4And even if he sins against you seven times in a day, and turns to you seven times and says, I repent [I am sorry], you must forgive him (give up resentment and consider the offense as recalled and annulled).
One of my best friends had not known her father, he abandon them. My children did have any contact with their father for over fifteen years because of our divorce and choices that were made. But in both of these cases when God came into the lives of these individuals and they realized who God was and what He required of them, they not only forgave, but purposed in their heart to face those people and try to find them and give them a platform to speak their piece and a giving them a chance at relationship. I had a child of someone I know tell me that they had forgiven their parent, but they had moved on and their parent was in their past and they felt God wanted them to put all of that to include the parent in the past and live their life. I felt so sad, why because we take the word of God and often will twist it to suit our agenda. We will allow something that our pastor, friend and even family members says that we will manipulate to make ourselves feel better about what we are doing and how we are doing it, even though it is contrary to the Word of God.
When we forgive there is evidence and there are characteristics that are exhibited. II Chronicle 7:14 says “If my people who are called by my name would humble themselves and pray and turn from their wicked ways and seek my face then will hear from heaven forgive their sins and heal their land.” When we forgive we will turn away from the process by which we handled people to do things differently; we will seek healing in every way possible. Many times when we need to forgive we look at the person’s track record and we take note of how many times we have had to forgive them, what if God ran a play by play of how many times we were disobedient, offensive and just down right rebellious to what He asked of us and how He asked us to live? What if He forgave us and said well there is a limit to my forgiveness, or if you pass three times I will deal with you differently or treat you with dismissal, disregard and estrangement? If God dealt with us the way we deal with those we so call forgive, we would be in trouble and in truth we really wouldn’t be forgiven. We would be sentenced to a life that is unforgiven and forever out of the presence of God.
We need to stop giving people an out when we counsel them about what true forgiveness is. We need to stop telling people it is okay to say that they forgive and then show no evidence of forgiveness. We ourselves need to stop saying we forgive people that we have not forgiven, because we keep their past transgression before us so that it keeps a gulf between us and relationship does not exist. But most of all if we are going to lean to God and use Him as our guide and resource for forgiveness than we should know the Word of God and what it says and what is required of us to be forgiven and to forgive. Many of us are walking around still angry, upset, bitter, vengeful and full of hate and contempt because with your mouth we have confessed forgiveness but we forgot to include our mind, heart and soul in the process of forgiveness. Let God’s example and His characteristics become ours, especially as it concerns forgiveness, because whether we want to believe it or not our life, eternal and otherwise depends on it!
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