Forgiveness.
One of the central themes that runs throughout the entire scripture is that of forgiveness,from Genesis to revelation Gods mercy and His forgiveness towards us and our need to show mercy and to forgive is clearly and unambiguously declared.
Forgiveness is a central theme of the new testament, it is crucial to our discipleship as Christians and essential to our well being and to the development of our faith.
In particular our calling to "Forgive others just as God in Christ has forgiven us" is not only our duty but the only sane response to the incredible mercy from God that each one of us has so lavishly received.
It is my assessment that many Christians know that forgiveness is important to their spiritual growth and yet struggle with unforgiveness, sometimes with issues that stretch back for decades.
It is also to often the case that churches are divided and split apart and friendships between Christians aborted all because of a failure to act according to this one principle that of forgiving others even as Christ forgave us.
So why is this?
If forgiveness is so fundamental to our spiritual growth as Christians, and if it is so crucial to our relationship with God then why is there so much unforgivness and strife in the church?
I believe that forgiveness is a simple principal that can be simply mastered and when we do so it will enable us to walk consistently in the love of God without fear of failure or of being tripped up by the enemy of our souls.
The first reason that many Christians fail to practice forgiveness is because they look to their feelings rather than acting in faith according to Gods word.
If you were to ask any christian who has felt unable to forgive or still nurtures a grudge against another I am sure that the first words that you would hear coming out of their mouths would be "I don,t feel able to forgive"
Some would even say "I have tried to forgive but I can,t forget the offence"
It is evident that many Christians are looking at how they feel as the arbiter of whether they have truly forgiven;when my feelings change that I know that I will have forgiven, when they are still in turmoil then I cannot have yet let go.
Forgiveness however is like any other spiritual virtue in the new testament or like any other discipline something that we operate only by faith.
I believe that it is possible to not only forgive but also to so forget an offence committed against us that our feelings towards that person or about that past circumstance do change entirely, however the way to see this victory in our lives is only ever to act by faith on what God has said in His Word.
Jesus gave us a powerful parable in Matthews gospel and chapter 18 which deals with our attitude of forgiveness vs unforgivness.
The parable is to long to quote in its entirety here now however it deals with a king who forgives one of his servants of a large debt.
This servant owed him an enormous sum but because he is unable to repay the debt he faces both himself and his entire family being sold into slavery.
He pleads for mercy before the king"The servant therefore fell down before him,saying,"master,have patience with me, and I will pay you all."v26
And the king response is one of pure grace and mercy,
"Then the master of that servant was moved with compassion, released him, and forgave him the debt.
There are few places in scripture that indicate to us more clearly the reality of our need before God and the willingness of our Father in heaven to forgive then this.
We come to God hopelessly unable to pay the debt of Adam transgression which we have inherited in our fallen unredeemable natures, and we come with the addition of a life of having consistently failed to live as we should and having committed many sins before God and man.
And yet God who is rich in mercy forgave us the debt of all of our sin when we turned in repentance and faith towards Him,and wipes out the record of all of our offences that stood against us, and gave to us a brand new nature that is indwelt by God who is love himself.
In this parable in Matthew 18 the forgiven servant having received mercy goes out from the presence of the king and immediately finds one of his fellow servants who owed him by comparison a small and insignificant debt.
He demands payment and in spite of his fellow servant asking him for mercy in precisely the same way that he had some short time earlier, he refuses to give mercy and casts his fellow servant into the jail until he has repayed all of his debt.
His fellow servants report this to the king who summons the unforgiving servant into his presence and says these chilling words to him
"You wicked servant!
"I forgave you all that debt because you begged me."
"Should you not have had compassion on your fellow servant,just as I had pity on you?"
And his master was angry and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due to him.
"So my heavenly father will also will do to you if each of you,from his heart,does not forgive his brother his trespasses."
The wicked servant evidently had a short memory and forgot the extent of the mercy of that king towards him.
So to we have despised Gods great mercy towards us when we say "I will not forgive" to others who have offended us.
When the bible says that the unforgiving servant was delivered to the torturers until he should repay all his debt the actual Greek word that is used there could also be translated "tormentors"
People who withold forgiveness from another experience no rest in their lives, but it will because a harassing tormenting issue that they can never silence or shrug off, far less forget until they forgive.
The actual offence that was committed against them may have been committed 50 years ago but it is as real and present to them and as fresh in their memory as if it had only just been committed.
No christian should or has to live with torment in their lives due to their withholding forgiveness from another person.
There is a little phrase at the very end of this passage that is a key to understanding how we should exercise forgiveness consistently and freely in our lives.
"So my heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you,from his heart,does not forgive his brother his trespasses."
We are to exercise this forgiveness from the heart.
I mentioned earlier that forgiveness is not something that we do led by our feelings, by whether we feel that we can forgive or not.
Rather I said that forgiveness is something that we exercise by faith as we simply act upon Gods word.
But in order to do this we must separate and distinguish between the soul and the spirit in our lives.
You are a spirit you have a soul and you live in a body.
Jesus said that God is a spirit and they that worship Him must worship him in spirit and in truth.
We who are made in Gods image and in his likeness are therefore also a spirit and we have a soul which comprises of the mind and the will and the emotions.
The bible talks about the Word of God separating and dividing asunder the soul and the spirit,and it is so important that we do allow this process to begin in our christian lives.
We need to dintinquish what is of the soul and what is of the spirit or we will remain carnal Christians who are immature in our responses for the rest of our earthly lives.
The spirit of a man is his innermost being his innermost conscience and the place where faith resides.
In the scriptures the word for spirit is most often used in the new testament where greater light was thrown upon the nature of man in his redemption, and the word for heart is more often used in the Old.
But essentially they are one and the same the heart is the spirit and the spirit is the heart.
It is in our heart or our spirit that we believe and it is in our heart or spirit that we forgive.
Our feelings are irrelevant to our ability to forgive and will most often hinder us, especially if we allow them to be at the forefront of our lives when it comes to our decision to forgive.
Rather when we forgive we do so from our spirit and we do so by faith.
We need to have faith that when we forgive we do so not as some empty act or mere ritual but we do so in the Presence of God and that obedience on our part releases the activity of Gods Spirit to work in that situation and in that other persons life(if they are still alive)
The book of proverbs chapter 4 tells us that we should "Guard our heart with all diligence for out of it flow the issues of life"
It then proceeds to tell us to "Put away perversity from our lips and put deceitful speech far from us.
To let your eyes look straight before you and your eyelids look straight ahead.
Do not turn to the right hand or to the left keep your foot from evil"
Walking in Gods love and exercising his forgiveness is walking in a straight path and not departing from it.
But it is most especially in the heart that we are to be vigilant to guard our thoughts and attitude because it is there in our spirits that we have the "issues if life"
It is in our spirit that we have received this new seed of a new nature
It is in our heart or in our spirit that we have received eternal life.
And it is in our spirits that we now are indwelt by God who is love who also has shed abroad his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit whom he has given to us.
It is so important that we release this love of God by the words that we speak.
According to proverbs 4 we guard our hearts and maintain the issues of life by "putting away perversity far from us and corrupt talk far from us."
We select the words that we speak carefully not engaging in words of strife or resentment and similarly we need to speak out our forgiveness.
Jesus said that" out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks"
The love of God that is in us needs to overflow out of us in forgiveness by what we say.
When someone has taken advantage of you or wronged you or unkindly treated you or acted selfishly towards you, you and I need to be able to say "Father in Jesus name I choose to forgive that person"
"I forgive them of any grievance or complaint that I have have against them"
I choose to forgive from my heart.
As an act of my will I am willing to forgive them in Jesus name."
In the new testament the agape love of God which is from God and which dwells inside of every child of God is always linked to our will.
We chose whether to exercise this love or not.
And how do we choose this?
By simply choosing to act upon God word.
God has told me to forgive anything and everything that I may have against another(no matter how insignificant or small it may seem)And He has told me to do so from my heart.
The bible says that it is the little foxes that spoil the vines, so never be deceived into thinking that any offence is too small.
If it was significant enough to register on you then it is significant enought to need to be forgiven.
Remember that this lifestyle is essentially for your sake not just for the other persons, to keep your heart free from all bitterness or resentment that would choke off the love of God from freely flowing through you and would play havoc with the quality of your faith
In fact if you are not praticised in doing this as a quick and spontaneous response and if you are not accustomed to speaking this out of your mouth as words spoken in a simple act of faith, then it may take a while to learn to bring your feelings into line.
But take heart you are obeying Gods word and he will honour you.
Your mind may tell you this is not working;likewise your feelings may be screaming at you I still feel the same.
Learn to deal with your soul, and your mind and its doubts, and your emotions and its turbulence just as you would an unruly child.
Say to your mind "Be quiet!" And say to your emotions" No! You will not deceive me.
I have already forgiven that person in Gods sight."
I have chosen by an act of my own will to forgive and to do so from my heart.
Say, "That is already dealt with and I have rolled the care of that person and of that situation over upon the Lord.
Now I will not think about that any more or touch that in my thought life."
You may need to do this repeatedly at first until you become established in these things but remember that you only need to forgive once, and then you take your stand of faith.
Littered throughout Christendom are Churches today that have been significantly weakened because of the entering in of strife and a spirit of division and rivalry and where people have taken an offence and others have walked out and others are bitter and determined to contaminate as many others as they can with their words of unforgivnesss.
These things are to our shame.
There is a powerful little scripture in Jeremiah 12 which says
"If you have run with the footman,and they have wearied you,
Then how will you contend with horses?
And if in the land of peace,
In which you trusted,they wearied you,
Then how will you do in the flooding of the Jordan?"
If some Christians are so quick to take offence over issues that are seemingly so slight then how will they fare when a real offence occurs?
If a christian is overwhelmed by someone saying something unkind to them or ignoring them and not giving to them what they feel they need, then how will they possibly stand in the midst of a real trial of unjust provocation?
We need to be men and women of greater backbone spiritually speaking.
It is always helpful to remember this; I am not responsible for what you may think of me or what you may feel about me,or of anything that you may speak against me.
I am not your controller and I am not responsible for your thoughts or actions towards me.
You will have to give account of yourself to God for your own thoughts and words and deeds, just as I will also.
What I am responsible for however if my own thoughts towards you, how I act and feel and think towards you.
I am responsible for my own actions towards you and that is what I am vigilant in guarding over closely.
Some deluded Christians and that is the truth of what they sadly are, feel that it is their responsibility to make someone else change and demand that they change and require them to change their attitude towards them, whilst all the time ignoring their own heart which is full of anger and unforgivness and bitterness.
Some will say," Did not Jesus say that we were to go to our brother who has sinned against us and point out his fault and then to take another with us, and finally to tell it to the whole church?"
Yes he did in Matthew 18, but if ever a Scripture was misunderstood and abused it is this one.
Those in the church who have as they would call it a ministry of exposing the sins and failures of others are operating straight out of a demonic inspiration.
A "fault finding spirit never comes from God"
In that passage of scripture we are told to deal with an offense that is a clear sin or offense against us and to seek personal reconcilation first with that other brother or sister so as to heal the breach before it is necessary for it to affect the whole church. This takes honesty and humility and courage to do it but it is also hugely rewarding for those who do so and obey,especially when you are able to see reconcilation and recovery of a realationship that is on the brink of a complete breakdown.
What it does not say is if a brother sins against you tell it to your pastor and then to everyone who is willing to listen to you.
This scripture is dealing with a serious offence not just a matter of someone giving offence because of a thoughtless word or selffish act or an unkind response.
If we went to point out these "sins " to them all the time then we would be guilty of becoming fault finders ourselves.
Most offences can and should be dealt with in the privacy of our own payer closets between us and God
But when a more serious breach of trust and sin against us has been committed which would put our relationship and christian fellowship between ourselves and that person in jeopardy unless it is resolved then we have been given a clear guideline as to the procedure in taking the steps necessary to win back this brother or sister if they are willing and open to God.
Paul said in 1 Corinthians 3 vs 3 "For where there are envy,strife,and divisions among you,are you not carnal and behaving like mere men?"
Paul was having to deal with strife and dissensions and disunity among the Corinthians because they were acting as mere men.
They should have been acting like spiritual men.
When we act out of the fallen nature and carnal instincts of our flesh we are acting as mere men.
We may try and justify it to ourselves or to others but the fruit will always speak for itself.
But when we choose to become spiritual men and women and to live in the spirit and to walk in love, then forgiveness becomes a law that we live by and from which we do not change.
Then we will see the greater blessings of God, and then we will see the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
And then we will prove that we are growing up into him who is our head Jesus our Lord from whom the whole body knitted and joined together by that which every joint and member supplies see the growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.Eph 4 16