When people hear they need to forgive others, they often react in dismay. “You want ME … to forgive THEM? After what they did, I’ll NEVER forgive them.”
Their mistaken belief is that forgiveness is for the offender, but it’s not. It’s God’s gift for us, the one’s who’ve been hurt, to not only set us free from what was done to us but from the person who did it. If we’re going to experience the freedom forgiveness brings, we need to understand what God says about this important issue.
The Bible tells us we were made in the image of God, with God-given boundaries, the right to be treated with honor, courtesy, kindness, and respect by those with whom we share community. They function like a drawbridge we can lower, so others can experience relationship with us.
When people mistreat us, God gave us authority to raise that drawbridge and say no to their harmful behavior, and tell them, “I’m made in the image of God, and you WILL NOT treat me like that.” When they acknowledge their wrong and ask forgiveness, we can lower our drawbridge and enjoy restored relationship. This is God’s design.
Unforgiveness. This occurs when someone hurts us and we pull our drawbridge up, but then we keep it up to protect ourselves from being hurt again. Because this reaction on our part is contrary to God’s design, we must secure an alternate power source to override God’s call to lower our drawbridge. We do this in two ways.
The first is by bringing the memories of past wounds into the present. Like a computer, our brains can store and retrieve those memories, giving them opportunity to wound us again. They produce feelings of hurt and anger that can be as fresh as the day we first experienced them. Feeding on them provides the motivation and power to keep our drawbridge up and live in the world of if only. If only that hadn’t happened, if only they hadn’t hurt us, we’d be a different person today. That haunting phrase – if only – creates a new identity for us, that of a victim.
The second way we keep our drawbridge up is by projecting into the future, using the phrase, what if. What if they hurt us again? What if someone else hurts us? Looking to the future, we imagine all kinds of hurtful scenarios that could happen if we lowered our drawbridge. Even though they’re not true, these fantasy wounds produce intense feelings of fear and mistrust, which empower us to keep our drawbridge up.
Unfortunately, these methods work very well. Whether we live from the past or project into the future, we miss the opportunity to enjoy the present. Afraid of being hurt again, we live in isolation and self-protection with the false but powerful identity of a victim, who in turn become victimizers – depriving ourselves and those who want to love us, of the relationship we could have.
If we continue to live in isolation, driven by the power of negative emotions, our God-given boundaries can transform into solid walls, castles of self-protection. Built high and wide, these fortifications work well to keep people at a distance. They can function passively, like a turtle with a shell that no one can penetrate. They also function actively, like a porcupine whose quills warn others to stay away or get pierced by our rage.
These walls are so effective that Proverbs 18:19 tells us it’s easier to conquer a fortified city than to win a wounded brother. No one can bring that person back into relationship unless they choose to do so. They alone can answer the question Jesus asked the lame man in John chapter 5, verse 6: “Do you want to be made well?” Sadly, many have lived so long as victims, and grown so comfortable with that false identity, they refuse to be made well.
Choosing to harbor their hurts, they sentence themselves to solitary confinement. Proverbs 18:19b explains that their contentions, their anger and bitterness, will be like bars that transform their castles of self-protection into prisons. They sit there in misery, serving out their self-imposed sentences of seclusion because they either don’t understand the purpose of forgiveness or, knowing it, they refuse to implement it
The New Testament word for forgiveness is apheimi, which means to release a debt. When someone hurts us, we hold it against them. We want them to pay for what they did, but this actually works against us. As long as we hold on to those wounds – those debts – we’ll never be free from the ones who hurt us and the pain they caused.
They’ll go wherever we go. Whether we’re at work or on vacation, in the park with our children or on a date with our spouse, they’ll be right there with us, reminding us of our pain and loss and stealing our attention from those we love. We need to release those debts so they can no longer oppress us.
What was done to us was wrong, but we can’t change it. We can, however, change what we do with what was done. We can put an end to our victimization by choosing to forgive and setting ourselves free from the hurt, anger, bitterness, and fear that unforgiveness will produce. Forgiveness will break the chains that have held us in bondage and keep that person, and what they did, from defining who we are.
When we forgive, the Holy Spirit will replace our false identity as victims with the new and powerful identity of a victor. He’ll dismantle the bars of our prison and tear down our castles of self-protection, so we can re-establish our God given boundaries and no longer live as victimizers.
We’ve suffered enough at the hands of others, and from the bitterness we chose through our unforgiveness. It’s time to take back our lives and not let them be stolen from us any longer. Let’s pardon ourselves from the prisons we’ve created and enjoy our true identity as persons made in the image of God, who enjoy relationships.
The enemy, however, will not make it easy for us. The last thing he wants is for us to live free, and he’ll do all he can to distort our understanding of what forgiveness is. So, let’s uncover his lies together.
Forgiveness does not mean the one who hurt us is getting off scot free. It means we’re turning them over to God, because He’s the only One qualified to judge rightly, and He’s promised to do so.
Forgiveness isn’t forgetting. It’s practically impossible to forget the hurtful things that were done to us. If we have to forget to forgive, we’ll remain in bondage to what was done. Forgiveness is remembering, yet still choosing to forgive.
Forgiveness isn’t something we do gradually. We choose to forgive in a single moment. The passage of time can sometimes soften our emotions, which might make us feel less wounded. But that’s different from choosing to forgive and living free of never-ending debt that continues to paralyze us.
Forgiveness doesn’t mean we’re going to have good feelings toward that person. It’s a choice of our will to release the debt they owe us, and then give God permission to change how we feel about them. This can take time.
Forgiveness isn’t telling the person we forgive them. You might do that at some point after they show repentance. But for now, forgiveness is a matter of the heart between you and God (Matthew 18:35).
Forgiveness never demands that you restore those people into your life. That would be asking us to do more than God does. In 2 Corinthians 5:19, God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself. But restoration does not occur until those people have reconciled themselves to God through repentance (2 Corinthians 5:20).
We’re to forgive people for our sake, which frees us to boldly love them. This may mean we hold them accountable for their behavior, withholding restoration until they repent. By forgiving our offender, we can live free, even if those who hurt us never repent or seek restoration. When we forgive, no one can steal the freedom it brings us.
Dear one, if you want to be free from your hurts, bring those people to God, just like Jesus did on the cross (Luke 23:34). Tell Him you’re making the choice to forgive them. Ask Him to deliver you from the hurt they brought you, and from the harm you did to yourself. He is a forgiver, and He lives in you to be a forgiver through you as you walk with Him by faith.
Let Galatians 5:1 be your marching orders from our Commander in Chief, the Lord Jesus. “It was for freedom that Christ died to make you free, do not let yourselves be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.”
Our podcast series, ‘Forgiving Others’, will give you a much deeper understanding of forgiveness, both how to do it and how to walk in it. You can find those episodes in our podcast.
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