As believers, we are blessed because our sins are forgiven by the same God who responds to us in all of the harsh realities of life. The cost of our forgiveness is incalculable. The sins of others perpetrated against us may not compare to the wrongs we ourselves have been forgiven for, but the personal cost of our forgiving another fades dramatically when compared with the cost of the forgiveness God so freely gives. And because we have been forgiven, God calls us to forgive others, something that isn’t always easy to do. This week, we are including two devotionals because we want you to hear the challenge to forgive, but we also want you to understand what “forgiveness” really means.................................
from Michele.................................
Psalm 32:1 “Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered.”
There are so many lessons we learn after we have lost someone we love. I think one of the most important lessons we can learn is how valuable our time is and how worthless it is to spend time and energy on the many hurts we have been carrying with us. People hurt us sometimes intentionally, but I truly believe most of the time our hurts come from a lack of communication. Instead of talking to each other and explaining ourselves, we instead jump to conclusions and sit and stew, licking our wounds over and over again until we sometimes can no longer remember where the root of the problem began. A friend of mine describes unforgiveness as hugging our hurts. We hold on so tightly that we eventually squeeze all the joy out of ourselves. How many times have we heard it said that to hold onto our hurts without extending forgiveness always hurts us more than the person who caused the hurt? We hear it and we know it, but yet we continue to rehash the pain. Is there someone you need to forgive? Remember Scripture tells us in Matthew 6:14, “For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.” Unforgiveness is a sin. We are disobeying God when we hold on to those hurts that are delivered by others. Forgiving someone who has hurt us is a hard thing to do, but as we slowly loosen the grip it has on us, we will find our bitterness will be changed to a cleansing of His grace and we will finally find joy.
Lord, if we are hugging our hurts, help us to loosen our grip.
from Bev.................................
The silence of the walls around her was crushing. She wandered aimlessly through the rooms she had called “home” for so many years. Pictures, mementoes, the worn, but comfortable places – all brought blurred and stinging memories of a once vibrant love. What had happened? It seemed the harder she had tried, the more he had pulled away. Her feelings were trampled; her hopes, scorned, and now, as she let her tears eclipse the scene before her, the reality tore at her soul – he was gone. Fictional story? Not really. The stabbing, haunting, oppressive pain of a marriage gone awry is a familiar story to many. Others have replayed the damaging tapes of abandonment, abuse, misunderstanding, character assault, neglect, or rejection, over and over again. We’ve been overlooked, left behind, ridiculed, and assaulted. Some have faced the horrors we all fear – a drunken driver, a random shooting, a sexual pervert. And from a far distant hill outside the ancient city of Jerusalem, three lonely crosses are etched on the horizon, and a Voice echoes through the ages, “Forgive ... just as I have forgiven you.”
The offense has happened. The first step in your journey is to acknowledge the offense and its consequences within a context of truth. Ignoring or denying an offense that has significantly impacted my life does not allow me to deal appropriately with its consequences. I can only forgive when I know what I am forgiving; therefore, I need to honestly and objectively face the offense and face its consequences. The second step in your journey is to understand forgiveness itself. A basic definition of forgiveness states, “Forgiveness is the setting aside of anger or punitive or vindictive feelings toward someone who has wronged me.” If forgiveness though is a journey, it is a process that takes time, and how much time may be dependent on the wrong that was committed. It is not “natural” – it is seldom our first response. Forgiveness never condones a wrong. What is wrong will always be wrong. Neither does forgiveness equate with forgetting. I may never forget, although forgiveness does over time, soften memories. It does not give an offender license to commit the same offense again and again. Forgiveness is for the past. Offenses in the present need to be appropriately addressed. From my own perspective as the one who has been wronged, forgiveness is not a manipulation tool for my offender to acknowledge his wrong or to change his behavior. Neither may happen.
You are already taking the third step in your journey when you make a decision to forgive while at the same time you are seeking to resolve, or accept, consequences. God offers His grace. I need to realize human effort is not only futile to “fix” an offense, but it can also be futile in attempting to “fix” its consequences. I will need His grace to meet me in the needs imposed by consequences. We’re not done yet. Remember that forgiveness is a journey, and although we make a decision to forgive, we must enter into working through the process of forgiveness while continuing to extend forgiveness. That’s the fourth step in the journey and it may be a long one. The process of forgiveness continues as old emotions resurface, as memories can suddenly descend, or as the reality of consequences are lived out, and we extend forgiveness again and again and even, again.
(Related Bible reading: Ephesians 4:31,32)
