SO WHY DO WE FORGIVE?
TRUE FORGIVENESS TRANSFORMS THE RECIPIENT
Forgiveness is Gods Grace to us – It is that offer of pardon to us – It is what transforms us.
His Mercy or Offer of Forgiveness precedes repentance. The women who wept and poured oil over JC feet – knew who she was and where she fit in the realm of things…. But Simon missed the whole point of God visiting his home. No concept of his own debt to Christ. Interesting that days after his transfiguration – more glorious than Moses seeing Gods Glory – Jesus is attracting sinners to weep on him while Moses repelled people with the shining of his face.
God offers us His murdered Son first – before we are born to sin and injure Him – He starts this process. The first side He shows us of Him at all is – Grace or Forgiveness. Then he offers it again and again and again for as long as we live – because we keep offending Him and His perfection. And I am glad his forgiveness of me is not limited to 70 times 7.
Saul stopped on the road transformed by Grace – maybe God said to Paul – A man by the name of Stephen’s dying words to me were “To forgive you Saul and not hold his death against you?”
God said to me….” Because I have forgiven you all this and spared you and I see you as blameless – How are you going to behave now? What does this belief do to your insides and your behaviors? You who demands fairness and justice? What is your debt to me now? What can’t I ask of you?”
FORGIVENESS RECONCILES PEOPLE
People will sin and injure people. Forgiveness is what reconciles us – God to us and us to each other.
The cross is the image of reconciliation – It reconciles the irreconcilable. Justice meets mercy there.
South Africa has a history worse than Ruanda or Yugoslavia – Why no Bloodbath?? – 2 million AK-47’s stockpiled for the revolution. I believe it was because of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
This commission travels around the country – Not a court but men on both sides of the war can come and confess their actions and they are given amnesty for confession. People come there wanting details of their missing sons and daughters. “Tell us how our children died….We just want to know who to forgive. Tell us where their remains are, a cloth or bone fragments so we can have something to bury and get on with our lives.” Their horrible atrocities were broadcast nationwide with lots of tears and mercy on both sides. Forgiveness guarantees peace for while we are forgiving we cannot have the next war. When it ends, we start laying the seeds of the next war. The Treaty of Versailles’s after WW1 did not forgive Germany and in that unforgiveness and demand for reparations lay the seeds of World War 2.
WE FORGIVE FOR OUR OWN SPIRITUAL AND EMOTIONAL HEALTH.
We get locked into the courtroom of our mind – Awaiting Justice, an Apology, Money or Reparations….
We pick at unacceptable emotional wounds and we still ask God why? We don’t trust out of fear of being hurt again.
A rape victim’s skin crawls when her husband later touches her – Abused incested children hear of “God as Father” and the name “father” sticks in their throat. When we finally forgive the sinner – It is that moment we finally get to walk out of that courtroom.
The drunk driver was in a blackout when he killed your little girl – he has no memory of the event and got sentenced to some AA meetings and some probation. You are the one plotting his murder – You stopped praying because God did not explain this – You now hate anyone with a drinking problem – You spend a day in tears when you go into her room and see her dolls against the wall and her empty bed. Your marriage is falling apart because you are angry and irritable and depressed.
Forgiveness frees us – We are the one set free, not them. I know it makes no sense but I have lived in a courtroom waiting for justice for 20+ years. Forgiveness of others released me.
God said for My own sake I forgive – not for ours…If He forgives for His sake, could we not forgive for our sakes, not for the perpetrators. Isaiah 43:25 I, I am He that blots out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and I will not remember thy sins.
The blood of Abel will lie crying for justice – “And He said, ‘What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood cries unto Me from the ground.’ ”Genesis 4:10 The blood of injury stains our hearts – and cries for justice. It will lay there then it will rot and a root of bitterness will grow under it. That root grows unseen under our smile and then its fruit will become evident. Bitterness is a root i.e. underneath the ground.
The rotting blood drying in our hearts will stink and contaminate us long after the perpetrator walks free. Forgiveness frees us today of the pain of yesterday so we can have a better tomorrow.
