08/12/2024
God calls us to the pure, powerful choice of forgiveness—and to pursue, wherever possible, the pathway of restoration and reconciliation.
Actually, this is not presented in Scripture as an option. “As the Lord has forgiven you,” Paul writes in Colossians 3:13, “so you also must forgive.” There’s not a lot of gray area or wiggle room in there.
The Lord Himself was equally clear and direct: “Whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him” (Mark 11:25). “Anything against anyone.” That pretty much covers the bases! No offense is too great, no offender is beyond the boundary to which our forgiveness must extend. Our fellowship with God requires it and depends on it.
So if we as believers persist in unforgiveness, our hearts are forced to wrestle with the fact that our actions amount to disobedience. Forgiveness is not a take-or-leave option that only a super-Christian should be expected to take.
Yes, it’s unnatural. It’s supernatural. At times it’s almost unbelievable.
Nothing about forgiveness is easy. There’s no question about that. It’s hard to think about. It’s hard to do. It’s hard to keep doing. But if we could somehow back away from our own situation long enough, out where we could see it more clearly, where the wounds and the scars didn’t hurt us every time we turned a certain way or made a sudden movement, we ’d see something else.
We’d see that not forgiving only makes it worse.
Though it may feel right, though it may seem justified, though it may appear to be the only option available to us, it is destructive and deadly to the one who drinks it. The very weapon we use to inflict pain on our offender becomes a sword turned inward on ourselves, doing far more damage to us—and to those who love us—than to those who have hurt us.
It is God’s way—and His way alone—that holds out any hope of healing and rescue from the inevitable troubles of life that we face.
