Post by Cindy on May 13, 2015 12:37:58 GMT -5
To start with, we're to forgive others the way the Lord forgives us. That means we need to go to them and tell them how they sinned and then if they repent, tell them they are forgiven. We also need to let them know that means we won't bring up the sin to them, to others, or even to ourselves again or ever use it against them, for that's how the Lord forgives us. Just knowing this little bit bring up all kinds of questions, but they'll be answered as we go along.
Why should we go to them, shouldn't they be coming to us? Well, yes, they should, but the Lord commands us to go to them just as He commands them to go to us and confess and repent, so ideally both parties should be on their way to each other right away. It rarely works that way though, so the Lord says, we're to go to them if they haven't already come to us. It helps if we understand the Lord's reasons behind His commands. His command to us that He tried to drill into our heads over and over is to love one another, and for unity in the body of Christ, so this is all about reconciliation. For the body of Christ to work the way the Lord intended, there can't be hard feelings between the various members of it. I'm not talking here about the members of a local church, but of the whole body, which is all who've been saved. Also we need to remember that we're to forgive the way the Lord forgave us. We did not go to Him first, He came to us and died for us while we were still sinners and His enemy.
When God forgives us, the Bible says that He "forgets our sins" or that He "casts them as far from us as the east is from the west" and other things like that. Being God, He knows everything, past, present and future, and therefore can't really forget anything. What does that mean then? It means that God never rubs our noses in our sins. It means that once we've repented and asked forgiveness, that He promises that He will never bring that sin up to us, to others, or even to Himself again. He will "remember them no more" (Isaiah 43:25) He doesn't hold them against us, even when we later repeat the same sin again. He obviously knows what they are, but He refuses to think of them or dwell on them and that's what He commands us to do as well.
What about those who aren't saved? What do we do then? The Lord never forgives us until we repent and then we become saved. Before then we really don't understand about sin, repentance or forgiveness and what it really means. So with the unsaved, we can only offer them a shallow portion of what we give each other when we forgive. But, in so doing, we're at the same time giving them an example of what being saved is all about and it can give us a great opening too to talk to them about the real deal...about salvation in Christ. We can explain to them that we can forgive them for ourselves, but that we can't forgive their actual sin for only God can do that, and for that they need to recognize that they need a Savior, etc. We can explain that when we forgive, it also means we won't bring the sin up to them, ourselves or others ever again or use it against them in any way, just as the Lord does for us when He forgives us and saves us. This can plant many good seeds the Lord can use to bring them into His Kingdom.
Do we have to forgive someone who's not saved? Yes, God still commands us to forgive them. His reasons for this are similar, for we're commanded to love them as well as other believers, though for a different reason. First because we don't know that they won't one day be a believer and our brother or sister in Christ. Only the Lord knows that. Therefore the Lord doesn't want things coming between us and them that might stand in our way if/when they do become a believer. Secondly, He wants us to represent Him to them, so we're literally to be Him to them, act as He would, speak as He would, forgive as He would. Of course this is to hopefully bring them into His Kingdom one day. The Lord knows that because they are unbelievers though that forgiveness and reconciliation won't always be possible. That's why He tells us regarding unbelievers, Romans 12:18 —If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. * Therefore we're to do all we can to live at peace with them.
All of this can be difficult but it seems the most difficult part is that we usually don't "feel like" forgiving them, whether they're saved or not. Yet, the Lord never tells us to do something that's not possible, so how do we deal with this? First we have to realize that our feelings have absolutely nothing to do with it. Seriously, they don't! We often do things we don't feel like. Every morning I used to have to be up no later then 6 so I could be at work by 7. When that alarm clock went off, I sure didn't feel like getting up, but I did, and I surely didn't want to go to work, or feel like it, but again, I did. Day after day. It's the same thing with forgiveness.
I never asked anyone if I'd truly gone to work that day since I hadn't felt like it that morning when I'd awakened, and yet we constantly find ourselves asking if we really forgave someone since we didn't feel like it when we did it and our feelings for them hadn't changed. The answer to that is simple. Of course we forgave them! (assuming we forgave the way the Lord forgives us anyway)
When our feelings about the person haven't changed, the reason is usually because we left out the part about not bringing the matter up to them, to others, or even to ourselves again. That's the clincher! And how in the world do we do that???? Again, the Lord tells us how. He calls it "taking our thoughts captive and making them obedient to Christ." (2 Corinthians 10:5 ) There is a short teaching about this subject here if you need to know how to do this: Taking Thoughts Captive. It does take self discipline, but it's what the Lord expects of us and it will change us to be more like Christ in more ways then I can begin to count here. Basically, what it means is that whenever we find ourselves beginning to think about (or speak about) the way the person sinned against us, we literally stop the thoughts/words before they go any further, reminding ourselves of our promise and that the Lord has done this many times for us. Since we have broken our promise, we then need to ask the Lord's forgiveness for it's a sin when we do that. Because of our sin nature, at first we'll find ourselves starting to or wanting to think about it quite often, so we'll constantly have to take those thoughts captive and replace them with God's Truth as described in the thread I mentioned. In this case the Truth we replace it with is, as I said before, to remind ourselves of our promise and how often the Lord has done this for us. You might want to remind yourself of one of the many scriptures that speak of how the Lord forgives us completely and why. The more we do this, the less often it will happen, until eventually we will find that our feelings will begin to reflect the feelings of our Lord instead of our old sin nature. Eventually those old feelings will be entirely replaced with those of love from our new nature that's like the Lord. This is what makes true forgiveness and reconciliation really possible.
So remember, our feelings, don't matter as far as whether or not we can forgive or have forgiven, unless they're acting as a sign that we have been remembering the sin instead of forgetting it. They will eventually begin to reflect the truth though the more we keep our thoughts in line with the Lord's when the matter does come to our attention.
When we forgive someone, it's a big deal, and something major happens in the spiritual realm and for the person being forgiven as well as for us. Giving or receiving forgiveness is not something that should ever be done lightly or without prayerful thought, which it often seems to be these days. Forgiveness is something we do out of love for our Lord to be obedient to Him; so we offer the offender a gift...not because they earned it by repenting, but because we love the Lord. When I say that something happens in the spiritual realm when we forgive, what I'm talking about is similar to the transformation that happens in the spiritual realm when we are saved. We may not see any difference in a person at first on the outside, but regardless of that, when a person is saved there is a very definite thing that happens to them in the spiritual realm. The same is true when we offer to forgive someone.
It's very different from the world's way of "apology". When people apologize, they don't have to confess any sin or even admit why they're really sorry. They could simply be sorry they got caught or that their reputation might suffer or for other consequences of what they did. They don't have to recognize that God has anything at all to do with it even. They're not promising you anything at all either. That doesn't mean however that we should never say we're sorry, but we should be aware of the difference between the two.
As I said at the start, I realize this doesn't cover anywhere near all the questions concerning forgiveness and forgetting or concerning both the saved and unsaved, but I hope it gives at least a glimpse of how the Lord wants us to forgive and why, and gives folks a place to start as they study this in God's Word. And of course, I hope it helps others as it has me in my own life.
Why should we go to them, shouldn't they be coming to us? Well, yes, they should, but the Lord commands us to go to them just as He commands them to go to us and confess and repent, so ideally both parties should be on their way to each other right away. It rarely works that way though, so the Lord says, we're to go to them if they haven't already come to us. It helps if we understand the Lord's reasons behind His commands. His command to us that He tried to drill into our heads over and over is to love one another, and for unity in the body of Christ, so this is all about reconciliation. For the body of Christ to work the way the Lord intended, there can't be hard feelings between the various members of it. I'm not talking here about the members of a local church, but of the whole body, which is all who've been saved. Also we need to remember that we're to forgive the way the Lord forgave us. We did not go to Him first, He came to us and died for us while we were still sinners and His enemy.
When God forgives us, the Bible says that He "forgets our sins" or that He "casts them as far from us as the east is from the west" and other things like that. Being God, He knows everything, past, present and future, and therefore can't really forget anything. What does that mean then? It means that God never rubs our noses in our sins. It means that once we've repented and asked forgiveness, that He promises that He will never bring that sin up to us, to others, or even to Himself again. He will "remember them no more" (Isaiah 43:25) He doesn't hold them against us, even when we later repeat the same sin again. He obviously knows what they are, but He refuses to think of them or dwell on them and that's what He commands us to do as well.
What about those who aren't saved? What do we do then? The Lord never forgives us until we repent and then we become saved. Before then we really don't understand about sin, repentance or forgiveness and what it really means. So with the unsaved, we can only offer them a shallow portion of what we give each other when we forgive. But, in so doing, we're at the same time giving them an example of what being saved is all about and it can give us a great opening too to talk to them about the real deal...about salvation in Christ. We can explain to them that we can forgive them for ourselves, but that we can't forgive their actual sin for only God can do that, and for that they need to recognize that they need a Savior, etc. We can explain that when we forgive, it also means we won't bring the sin up to them, ourselves or others ever again or use it against them in any way, just as the Lord does for us when He forgives us and saves us. This can plant many good seeds the Lord can use to bring them into His Kingdom.
Do we have to forgive someone who's not saved? Yes, God still commands us to forgive them. His reasons for this are similar, for we're commanded to love them as well as other believers, though for a different reason. First because we don't know that they won't one day be a believer and our brother or sister in Christ. Only the Lord knows that. Therefore the Lord doesn't want things coming between us and them that might stand in our way if/when they do become a believer. Secondly, He wants us to represent Him to them, so we're literally to be Him to them, act as He would, speak as He would, forgive as He would. Of course this is to hopefully bring them into His Kingdom one day. The Lord knows that because they are unbelievers though that forgiveness and reconciliation won't always be possible. That's why He tells us regarding unbelievers, Romans 12:18 —If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. * Therefore we're to do all we can to live at peace with them.
All of this can be difficult but it seems the most difficult part is that we usually don't "feel like" forgiving them, whether they're saved or not. Yet, the Lord never tells us to do something that's not possible, so how do we deal with this? First we have to realize that our feelings have absolutely nothing to do with it. Seriously, they don't! We often do things we don't feel like. Every morning I used to have to be up no later then 6 so I could be at work by 7. When that alarm clock went off, I sure didn't feel like getting up, but I did, and I surely didn't want to go to work, or feel like it, but again, I did. Day after day. It's the same thing with forgiveness.
I never asked anyone if I'd truly gone to work that day since I hadn't felt like it that morning when I'd awakened, and yet we constantly find ourselves asking if we really forgave someone since we didn't feel like it when we did it and our feelings for them hadn't changed. The answer to that is simple. Of course we forgave them! (assuming we forgave the way the Lord forgives us anyway)
When our feelings about the person haven't changed, the reason is usually because we left out the part about not bringing the matter up to them, to others, or even to ourselves again. That's the clincher! And how in the world do we do that???? Again, the Lord tells us how. He calls it "taking our thoughts captive and making them obedient to Christ." (2 Corinthians 10:5 ) There is a short teaching about this subject here if you need to know how to do this: Taking Thoughts Captive. It does take self discipline, but it's what the Lord expects of us and it will change us to be more like Christ in more ways then I can begin to count here. Basically, what it means is that whenever we find ourselves beginning to think about (or speak about) the way the person sinned against us, we literally stop the thoughts/words before they go any further, reminding ourselves of our promise and that the Lord has done this many times for us. Since we have broken our promise, we then need to ask the Lord's forgiveness for it's a sin when we do that. Because of our sin nature, at first we'll find ourselves starting to or wanting to think about it quite often, so we'll constantly have to take those thoughts captive and replace them with God's Truth as described in the thread I mentioned. In this case the Truth we replace it with is, as I said before, to remind ourselves of our promise and how often the Lord has done this for us. You might want to remind yourself of one of the many scriptures that speak of how the Lord forgives us completely and why. The more we do this, the less often it will happen, until eventually we will find that our feelings will begin to reflect the feelings of our Lord instead of our old sin nature. Eventually those old feelings will be entirely replaced with those of love from our new nature that's like the Lord. This is what makes true forgiveness and reconciliation really possible.
So remember, our feelings, don't matter as far as whether or not we can forgive or have forgiven, unless they're acting as a sign that we have been remembering the sin instead of forgetting it. They will eventually begin to reflect the truth though the more we keep our thoughts in line with the Lord's when the matter does come to our attention.
When we forgive someone, it's a big deal, and something major happens in the spiritual realm and for the person being forgiven as well as for us. Giving or receiving forgiveness is not something that should ever be done lightly or without prayerful thought, which it often seems to be these days. Forgiveness is something we do out of love for our Lord to be obedient to Him; so we offer the offender a gift...not because they earned it by repenting, but because we love the Lord. When I say that something happens in the spiritual realm when we forgive, what I'm talking about is similar to the transformation that happens in the spiritual realm when we are saved. We may not see any difference in a person at first on the outside, but regardless of that, when a person is saved there is a very definite thing that happens to them in the spiritual realm. The same is true when we offer to forgive someone.
It's very different from the world's way of "apology". When people apologize, they don't have to confess any sin or even admit why they're really sorry. They could simply be sorry they got caught or that their reputation might suffer or for other consequences of what they did. They don't have to recognize that God has anything at all to do with it even. They're not promising you anything at all either. That doesn't mean however that we should never say we're sorry, but we should be aware of the difference between the two.
As I said at the start, I realize this doesn't cover anywhere near all the questions concerning forgiveness and forgetting or concerning both the saved and unsaved, but I hope it gives at least a glimpse of how the Lord wants us to forgive and why, and gives folks a place to start as they study this in God's Word. And of course, I hope it helps others as it has me in my own life.
!!
