Forgiving Others...

After realizing that I was as much to blame for past hurts as anyone else was, I really thought I would simply stop holding on to grudges, but that simply wasn’t the case.  I continued to have a great deal of anger toward people, in spite of the fact that I recognized that I was at fault too.  My flesh continued to remember the “terrible” nature of what others had done, and weighed other’s sins to be greater than my own.  Nature would not allow me to forgive.  The only way forgiveness could happen, was for me to seek to forgive in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Let’s stop there for a minute…

I’m not sure how many times I’ve heard someone say, “I love them, but I don’t have to like them.” Or, “I could forgive a lot of things, but that’s just the ONE thing I cant get over.”  Both of these kinds of thinking are fleshly processes.  As believers, we are under a new mandate to forgive like Christ forgave, and to love like Christ loves.  Neither of these statements conforms to that idea.  On the contrary, if a person only loves the people that are easy to love, how are they different from anyone else? (Matthew 5:43-48)

Typically, after statements like these, I hear people say something like, “But you don’t understand, because you haven’t been hurt like I have.”

This may be true, but I have to remind that person that Jesus was hurt most of all, and he forgave us all.  (Don’t try to argue this point people; it’s the source and foundation of our faith.  Without it, we have nothing.)

…Now, let’s continue.

Humbling myself before the Lord, I asked the Holy Spirit to give me the understanding and strength to forgive like Christ did.  I began to name people (aloud) who hurt me, and asking that the Lord would open my eyes to see them like Christ sees them. In many cases, my hope was that I would be able to see them as pure, and righteous because of he blood of Jesus, as well as, co-heirs with Christ to the throne of God. (Romans 8:12-17)

One by one, I would name people and pray that the Lord would bring life into my heart, where previously there was death.  And one by one, He did.

There have been times that I regressed, and there have been times that I have had to return to my knees to allow the Lord to reteach me about forgiveness, but it had to start somewhere. 

As ministers of the Gospel, your church, coworkers, and even your pastor will eventually hurt you.  That is one of the ongoing truths of the world in which we live.  But the truth of the gospel is that forgiveness is real, and we receive it like we share it.