The Force of Forgiveness

Have you ever stopped to wonder what makes people act the way they do? What makes a philanthropist give or a murderer kill? What drives some to stand up for the weak and others to bully them? What causes one to seek for retribution when wronged and another to trust in God and grant mercy? Whatever the reason, each of us go through life with options as to how we will respond to any given situation. There will be times for all of us when we will be wronged. Things will not always work out the way we think that it should. There will always be times when, whether intentional or not, things will happen in our life that will cause us pain. It is how we respond in these moments that truly determine whether we will live our lives bound in bitterness or free in the liberty of Christ.

Bitterness can be such an imposing force in the lives of those who are bound by it. So many live their lives, unable to get beyond wrongs that have been committed against them and they suffer in prisons that they create for themselves, never truly able to live the life of freedom God designed for them. Instead they live their life always lashing out attempting to gain revenge for wrongs, sometimes real, sometime perceived, committed against them. Ironically enough, Paul tell us that vengeance belongs to God and when we attempt to exact our revenge on those who have caused us pain, we're really trying to act in the place of God. Terry Shock in a message he preached recently said that bitterness is a poison pill that we take hoping someone else will die. What an accurate description. So many Christians are literally swallowing the pill wishing ill will on others, meanwhile the poisonous bile of bitterness is creating havoc on their spiritual man, their biological systems and ultimately their eternal soul. Max Lucado describes bitterness as a cancer that ravages the soul and truly if we allow it, bitterness will indeed destroy the very life that Jesus died for.

I believe, that our world today in the year 2009, is being ravaged by bitterness brought on by an unwillingness to forgive. We are taught that when we are wronged, someone must pay the price. We are taught that for every crime there must be a penalty; for every bad deed, there must be a resulting punishment. This is drilled into us from our earliest days and when it comes to wrongs committed against us, we have a tendency to want retribution, we want punishment and we want it now. The Bible tells us that Jesus paid our penalty, made our retribution, took our punishment and in the process we all were given access to the force of the forgiveness of Christ. This forgiveness, we will gladly accept for ourselves but when it comes to extending it to others, we have a tendency to withhold. Forgiveness when withheld places us in a position and seat of judgment that we were never meant to be in .

In Luke 6, Jesus makes such a profound statement that I'm truly humbled by its simplicity and yet amazed by the force of its implication: "Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you." All my life I've heard preachers, pastors, and offering takers use the latter half of that passage in an effort to instill the principal of the importance of giving (and who knows, sometimes in an effort to get a few more dollars in the plate :-). For the longest time, I never associated the first half of the passage with the second half of the passage. But Jesus tells us that the same level of judgment and condemnation that we dish out, it will come back to us. It also tells us that the measurement of our forgiveness of others is also the measurement with which we'll be forgiven. God gives us a tremendous tool of blessing or cursing - it's really up to us. You can live bound by bitterness, condemnation, judgment and unforgiveness OR you can choose to forgive. When we choose to forgive we open a window of forgiveness in our own life. We can then live free from the guilt of the mistakes of our past - because we've learned to forgive others, we can then experience the force of forgiveness in our own lives. I don't know about you but judgment and condemnation were not the character traits that God wanted in me. And when it comes to forgiveness and giving, I want Jesus to be able to back up the truck and dump it out in my life - so I've got to first be able to forgive liberally, willingly and without regret. The true key to forgiveness is understanding that I'm not saying that the wrong that was done to me is actually right. True forgiveness is saying, I'm leaving the past buried in the past, I'm entrusting it to the hands of God because I know that at the end of the day, he will do what is right. And so today, if you've wronged me, you are forgiven. Life is too short for me to be bitter. AND if I've wronged you, I'm so sorry, please forgive me - let's together pledge to live a life FREE from judgment and condemnation and trust in the forgiveness of our great SAVIOR.

Love all of you - let's have a great week in Jesus! -- RP