I read a blog yesterday from someone who used to attend our fellowship. The blog made me sad. It saddens me too because I have heard and read many conversations which were eerily similar to what this man blogged. The blog I read was all about how someone had wronged this person several years ago and the person who wrote the blog still refuses to forgive. They are stuck in the past (2 years or more in the past) because they (not the person whom they think wronged them) refuse to move on from that position and simply forgive and get on with life. In fact, the reason they left our fellowship was that I tried to get him to forgive his brother in the Lord when the incident occurred.
When we focus so much attention on things which have hurt us in the past, we show two things. One, we show that we have not forgiven the wrongs done to us. This is a problem for any believer on a couple of levels. One, God requires us to forgive, if we are to receive forgiveness ourselves. I know this doesn’t fit nice and neatly into our little theological boxes but it IS what Jesus said never the less.
Matthew 6:15
15 But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
NIV
This is a hard statement by Jesus, but He means what He said. If I am to receive forgiveness from God, I must forgive. When I constantly (and I used to do this) bring up hurts from my past and react to them as if they are alive today, I tell on myself that I have not forgiven. This was, unhappily at the time, brought to my attention by my mother in the early 90s. She noticed that I was still talking about the things someone had done to me years earlier and she said, “I believe you have and unforgiveness issue here”. Of course, I blew it off and said, “no I don’t.” However, the fact of the matter was that I did have an unforgiveness issue and I was not going to have peace in this matter, until I let the offender off the hook and realized that they owed me nothing. You see, the only thing that hanging on to bitterness over a past offense does is destroy our ability to find peace in this life. Jesus came to bring us peace. He has freely forgiven us, so why would I hold any offense against my brother?
This brings me to the second problem for a believer holding on to unforgiveness. That problem is that we have been forgiven freely and we should freely forgive. Why? Because a person was not designed by God to hold on to unforgiveness. Holding on to hurts and resentments from the past only serve to allow that person to hurt us on a daily basis. If I am unforgiving, the only person hurting over that is me. I’m not hurting the one I’m not forgiving. They are likely, completely unaware that I’m even still angry. I truly believe that much of the emotional turmoil I see in America everyday is caused by an epidemic of unforgiveness. People are taught that they have a right to be angry and have to express that anger. People who believe that are doomed to very sad unpeaceful lives for the rest of their lives. Jesus came to take the sin of the world, including the sins of the one who wronged us. God forgave me of all sorts of wrongs in my life by His grace. He required nothing of me but to receive His grace and mercy, so why should I require anything of those who wrong me?
Now I started this out by saying that, when we focus on hurts from the past, we show two things. One was our unforgiveness. The second is our unwillingness to move forward in life. We doom ourselves to be stuck every single day in the past. I don’t know about you, but I truly believe that God made each and every one of us to make a mark on this world for His Kingdom. How in the world am I going to do that if I live my life dredging up horrible things from my past all the time? Oh, don’t get me wrong. There are times when it is useful to share things, even bad things, from our past with a concerned friend. I’ve been catching up with many of my old friends on Facebook and Twitter and when someone asks about what the years have brought me through I share the good and the bad and they do too. It’s good to know some of the things we have walked through in life because truly those things have made us who we are today and God’s hand has brought us through all of it. But, what I’m talking about is that person who continually focuses on what has been evil in their lives. I’ve got too much to do to get caught up in that. I want to learn the lessons from mine and other’s past mistakes and move on by forgiving them and then looking for what God has for me today. Paul says it this way:
Philippians 3:13-14
13 Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. NIV
Forgetting what is behind!!! Yes, I can’t get in the race with all that baggage. I need to forget what is behind. It’s in the past. There is nothing I can do about it now with the exception of learning from past mistakes not to do it again. But I need to be pressing on. I need to focus my life on what God has for me today and tomorrow and every tomorrow after that until I win the prize. Focusing on all the wrongs done to us not only hurts us and blocks our own forgiveness, it sits me in the bleachers of life instead of out running the race where I belong. Listen, I’ve been there. I’ve done it. I’ve been paralyzed by bitterness and there is absolutely no peace in it. That’s not where God wants us to be. Jesus, the Prince of Peace, came to bring us peace. When we choose not to forgive, we refuse God’s peace. I, for one, choose to move on. I want to let go of the past and press on for what God has for me today. Someone said to me a couple of days ago, “I don’t think Don Carr is finished yet”. And to that, I say a whole hearted Amen!!! I will not be finished until I see Him face to face and hear those words, “well done good and faithful servant” and until that time I intend to run the race to win.
Hebrews 12:1-3
1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. 2 Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. NIV
Let’s throw off everything that hinders. Let’s forgive. Let’s forget what is behind and look for all of the wonderful things God, in His mercy and love, has for us today. That’s what I’m going to do.
Until later,
Don
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4 comments:
Amen! If you define yourself as a victim, you will ALWAYS be a victim
1
Don, that was an excellent post. :)
Great post. I think this post could be a huge lesson for a good majority of us.
I believe forgiveness is supernatural, depending on the nature of the offense. For the first 24 years of my life, I was taught to hate my biological mother, Anita. It was a growing hatred, a deepening unforgiveness.
But one day I heard a message about hell from Luke 16. I confessed my sin at the altar, and by God's grace, my sin was forgiven. I remember when I was newly saved, I had a vision of Jesus on the cross, arms outstretched, and I KNEW that Jesus knew me then - 2000 years ago. With his arms outstretched, He said directly to me "I'm doing this for you, Victoria." My sins, which were many, had separated me from God. My mind flashed to all my sins - which were now totally forgiven! Isaiah 43:25.
My immediate response was to forgive Anita for the wrongs and hurts. She attended my baptism and by God's grace, I didn't hold the past against her because Jesus doesn't hold my past against me.
Thanks, Don. Brought me back to important things.
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