Forgiveness (Part 3)

Forgiving Others

"Love Hurts!" was the name of a popular song in the early eighties. Its message was simple: to love someone means to make oneself vulnerable to be hurt. To love another person can be a very big risk!

It seems that in America we have developed a strategy to minimize the risk of love. By learning to isolate ourselves, we have learned to avoid going through the potentially messy work of being hurt and then having to forgive.

By keeping our distance, we create a sort of artificial padding between us so that we don't have to see what is inside us. Then we can continue to see each other as nice, decent people. And yet how would we treat each other if some of the things we take for granted were suddenly removed from us? Most of us, for example, have never been forced to miss even a single meal. What if, suddenly, because of a food shortage or lack of money we had to miss three meals? Or six meals? Or more? How civil would we be then?

We might recall just a few years ago how frantic some people became when there was a temporary shortage of Cabbage Patch dolls around Christmas time. One woman was actually killed because of the shortage of Cabbage Patch dolls!

Perhaps we have reduced the risk of hurt, but at the same time we have lost the joy of love! Truly that price is too high! And yet that price is paid every day through divorce, infidelity, revenge, addictions, etc. What is the remedy for our lovelessness? The remedy is forgiveness. Only forgiveness can overcome our bitterness, that which says, "I've been hurt before and I'm not going to let it happen again!" Forgiveness can cancel the debt owed to us by those who've hurt us.

In Matthew 18, Jesus relates a parable which demonstrates how and why we are to forgive others. A certain servant was forgiven a huge debt by his master. But then, when it was this servant's turn to forgive one of his borrowers who only owed him a fraction of his previous debt he was unbending. When the master found out, he threw the servant in jail until he could pay his entire original debt.

The most important issue in this story is the huge debt the servant owed to begin with. For the Master to forgive such a large sum should have made any other debt dwarf in comparison.

We can easily apply this parable to our earthly relationships. Forgiving another person who has hurt or betrayed us should be relatively easy when we recognize how great a debt God has forgiven us.

The word forgive comes from a Greek word which means "to send away" or "to release." It implies that we let go of the debt we've incurred. We do this by choice. As we do, we become channels for God's grace to people who may have never experienced it before. And thus, through forgiveness, we might lead those we forgive to a saving knowledge of Christ.

We should remember, however, that forgiveness does not guarantee reconciliation. It simply makes it possible from our side. So indeed, forgiveness is costly. According to Neil Anderson, "forgiveness is agreeing to live with the consequences of another person's sin." But the truth is we are going to have to live with those consequences whether we want to or not. Our choice then is whether we will live in the bitterness of unforgiveness or the freedom of forgiveness.

Forgiving Ourselves

As a young adult, Tim found himself involved in several immoral relationships. After becoming a Christian, Tim realized the forgiveness of God. And yet even today he continues to struggle to forgive himself for some of the specific things he has done. What should he do?

The need to forgive ourselves is sometimes a real issue. Paul, for example, tells us in 1 Corinthians 6 that adultery is a sin against one's own body. So how does one in such a situation forgive oneself?

First we must realize that our greatest need is for forgiveness from God. Some "Christians" have tried to reduce Christianity to a self-improvement program, saying that forgiving and accepting ourselves is the main problem we face. For some, Christianity is a means, perhaps the best means, of feeling good about ourselves, and finding self-esteem. But this is a perversion of the gospel of Christ.

Just as God's forgiveness leads the way to forgiving others, it also must precede self-forgiveness. This is because the Bible distinguishes between guilt and shame. Guilt is experienced when we violate God's moral standards (that is, if we have allowed His standards to become our standards). Our conscience tells us that we did something we should not have done. And in that case, we need to approach God and receive His forgiveness based on what Christ did for us on the cross.

Sometimes we must deal with personal shame. Shame has to do with who we are rather than what we've done. That's why it is entirely possible to know that God has forgiven a particular sin, and yet still feel shame for being the type of person who would do such a thing. And this feeling can get in the way of forgiving ourselves.

Shame often occurs when we violate some ideal of goodness or heroism we have of ourselves. We may see ourselves as a very godly or strong person. Usually these images have been embedded into our minds by the world or by some authority figure, such as a teacher or a parent. In such a case, we are experiencing "false shame." The picture we have of ourselves is not realistic. We may need to ask God's forgiveness for holding on to such illusions, for thinking we didn't need to rely upon His grace and strength. We may also need to forgive others who have hurt us by promoting these false images to us.

When we see that with God all things are forgivable, we can begin to forgive ourselves for even the "big" sins. We can cancel the debt we owe to ourselves because we see that the debt was not too great for God. We can let ourselves go and begin to confront our feelings of self-disgust. We can experience "true shame" before God, which is humility.

We may need the aid of a friend at times to help us sort through our images of ourself that cause our anguish of self- disappointment. We often try to come before God with a list of excuses, or of all the things we've done right. Can you imagine, though, coming before God with the information on our resume? "I accomplished," "I achieved," "I," "I," "I"!

The Bible tells us that Christ endured the cross and despised its shame because of the joy He found in reconciling people to God (Heb. 12:2). We too should not let feelings of shame hinder us from knowing and serving God. As we allow His grace to confront our shame, we can become channels of His grace to a world that needs to see a living portrait of His love and forgiveness.