Part I
Forgiveness should be a characteristic of the Christian life, one thing that sets us apart from the rest of the world. But the sad fact is many Christians go through life never learning the freedom of forgiveness. They harbor bitterness and pain, and often are caught in the same desire for revenge as everyone else; they are locked in a prison of unforgiveness.
The problem is that forgiveness is not easy. In fact, it’s one of the toughest things we have to do in this life. Forgiving someone who has wronged us goes against our natures and our instincts. You see, we all have a natural tendency to want revenge. Just to say, “I forgive you” seems to let the other person off the hook too easily. After all, they’ve made us suffer, so shouldn’t they suffer, too?
If you’ve felt that way, or maybe you still feel that way, you’re not alone. I certainly have been there many times, and I understand that natural desire to get back at those who have done us harm.
However, if we follow those instincts, if we succumb to revenge and hatefulness as a way to deal with those who have wronged us, we discover that it boomerangs on us. That unforgiving spirit turns on us and causes us far more damage than anyone else. It doesn’t solve anything and it makes our own pain worse.
If anyone has a right to talk about forgiveness, Jesus does. He was mistreated constantly, with the final disgrace of being crucified unjustly. Yet even on the Cross he was able to say, “Father, forgive them. . ” Since he’s more than acquainted with forgiveness, let’s see what he says about it.
Matthew 6:14-15: “For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”
And Luke 6:37-38: “Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”
And when the disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray, he told them to pray: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”
Every time I read these verses, I always go back and re-read them to make sure I didn’t misunderstand what Jesus said. These words are very powerful. Consider exactly what Jesus is telling us.
First of all, the forgiveness we receive from God is dependent on the forgiveness we give to others. If we forgive, we will be forgiven. And conversely, if we do not forgive people that have wronged us, we will not be forgiven by our Heavenly Father.
And then the passage from Luke tells us that our generosity in forgiving determines the generosity with which we will be forgiven. If we dish out our forgiveness sparingly, with a small measure, then that’s how it will be dished out to us.
Now, how important is it to you to be freely forgiven by God? How much do you need his forgiveness? Can you run the risk of not being forgiven regularly by the Lord? When you look at it that way, then a decision on our part to learn to forgive is the only sensible thing to do.
But there’s one other teaching Jesus gave on forgiveness that is even stronger than the ones we’ve just looked at. It’s found in Matthew 18, when Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?” Since Jewish tradition only required that you forgive someone four times, I’m sure Peter felt he was being very generous to suggest seven. Jesus told him not seven times, but 77 times!
Peter’s question prompted a parable from Jesus, about a servant who owed his king 10,000 talents. This was a sum so large that it would have been difficult for Bill Gates to pay it back. The servant claimed he would pay back the debt, but the facts were, he could never have paid it back. It was way beyond his ability to ever amass that much money in his lifetime, but the king is gracious and merciful and cancels the debt.
Then, this servant who has been forgiven this huge debt, goes to a fellow servant that owes him the equivalent of about $20 or so—a small debt, something that could have been paid back given any reasonable amount of time. When his fellow servant begged him to be patient and give him time to pay the debt, he refused and had him thrown into prison.
It seems to us really ridiculous that this servant could have been so heartless to throw his friend into jail for a measly $20 after he had been forgiven of a gigantic million-dollar debt. Jesus is making the point that when a person has received forgiveness in large measure, they should not find it that difficult to forgive others of a small debt.
The analogy is obvious. We who are born again are the ones who have been forgiven a great debt. God has freely forgiven us of our sins, a debt we could never repay, like the servant in the parable. Stop and think about your debt to God.
Suppose you are told that you must raise $10 million to pay an earthly debt, and if you don’t, you’re going to jail for the rest of your life. Could you do it? Well, I can tell you that even though I like challenges, that’s one I could never achieve. I’d throw my hands up and say, “Take me to jail!”
Friend, if it would be difficult for us to raise $10 million to pay an earthly debt, imagine what it would require for us to pay our debt to God. Sinless perfection is what it would take, from the day we were born, and there is no way we could ever, ever, ever come up with it.
And yet, God has forgiven you and me of that enormous, insurmountable debt. Freely, graciously forgiven, through the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We are justified, no longer condemned, set free, as though we had paid our debt. But we didn’t; Jesus did.
Now, I ask you, how could you and I ever think that forgiving someone else is too much to ask of us? Are we better than Jesus? If it wasn’t too much for him to forgive us, it can never be too much for us to forgive others, no matter how they’ve wronged us. We can forgive because we have been forgiven.
But the real punch in this parable comes in the final sentence. We see that the unforgiving servant is turned over to the jailers to be tortured, and Jesus closes the parable by saying, “You wicked servant,” he said, “I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you? In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed. This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.”
This statement is so strong that frankly, I don’t understand the full implications. But this much I know: It makes God angry when we are unwilling to forgive after we have been forgiven so much. And a person who refuses to forgive is asking for misery.
How about you? Have you been rebelling against forgiving someone? If so, you probably are experiencing some mental and emotional torture, and feel as though you’re locked in a prison. It’s likely that your fellowship with God has been broken and your own sense of being forgiven by God is uncertain.
I understand how hard it is to forgive, especially when the wounds are deep. Forgiving rarely is easy. But it’s so much easier than the turmoil you now know. Your lack of forgiveness is backfiring on you and re-injuring you all over again. It is only by forgiving that you can know freedom from that prison of unforgiveness where you find yourself now.
But how? That’s the question. How do you forgive when you don’t feel like it; when inside you want revenge? And what do you do when you forgive, but it doesn’t last? When the feelings of anger and bitterness keep coming back? It’s easy to say: “You have to forgive,” but how?