Forgiveness

You’ve been hurt and now you are devastated. Between your sniffling, you manage to blurt out, “I will never forgive you for that!”

People hurt people all the time. When someone special does not meet our expectations, we feel hurt. When a loved one betrays us, we are sorely disappointed and depending on the severity of the betrayal, forgiveness is hard to muster.

Being a Christian does not make you immune to this. Christians, like anybody else, are sometimes hard-pressed to forgive, and choose instead to hang on to unforgiveness.

But you can’t hang on to hurt and you certainly can’t hang on to unforgiveness. Unforgiveness is costly, a heavy price is paid and not by the unforgiven but by the one who refuses to forgive. It’s like placing spokes in the wheels of your new life, stalling your journey and hampering any enjoyment that you should be experiencing.

Clutching unforgiveness works at cross purposes with the newly created you. It will cripple your walk and hold you in the grip of the old ways of bitterness, vengeance, resentment, hate and blame. These should never be a part of your new life in Christ Jesus, who, in teaching His disciples how to pray said,

“Forgive us the wrongs we have done, as we forgive the wrongs that others have done to us.” – Matthew 6:12 (GNT)

This Good News Translation hits the nail squarely on the head.

God is into forgiving the wrongs we have done, do and will do. As believers in His beloved Son, we need to be into forgiving the wrongs others do. As a matter of fact, we also need to forgive the wrongs we ourselves do.

Listen, hurt fades away; you just have to wait but during this period of waiting, you must deliberately forgive. It takes some effort, especially when anger is a factor. Remember that it’s a process, you won’t have overnight success because the process is also a teaching tool.

Too many of you, because you’ve heard time and time again, “forgiveness is for you, unforgiveness will only destroy you” , want to forgive but on your own terms with no help from Spirit. You know why? You still want to store the negative emotions in the inner compartment you have reserved for hurt, anger, bitterness, resentment, hate, ire, pain, bad-mind, and unforgiveness.

That same compartment that you created deep inside you will eventually become a festering sore with maggots eating you from the inside out. Consider that for a moment. Nah, picture it instead.

You cannot properly achieve this in your own strength only by the power of the Holy Spirit is it doable; you can and will get rid of the hurt feelings and the anger when you turn to the Holy Spirit.

Indian Bay St. Vincent photo by O'Reilly Lewis

Beloved, make up your mind to forgive, be determined. Forgiving is the essential first step in the process. Get back on the road from wherever you detoured. Forget about all the various methods you can use to punish the one who levelled the hurt, focus on healing and continue living.

Amen? Amen!

 

 

Shelley Johnson “Forgiveness” © January 30, 2025