Well, hey there and hello to you today. I hope that the month of May is already a month of blessings, a time when you experience the goodness of the Lord in a whole mess of ways, and that you are able to lean in and draw near to Him each day of this entire month right here at the start of the summer season. And I also hope this podcast, specifically this series on Hot Topics, can be part of your daily walk with the Lord. I’m so thankful you’re listening to the show today as we discuss the second topic in this ser...
Well, hey there and hello to you today. I hope that the month of May is already a month of blessings, a time when you experience the goodness of the Lord in a whole mess of ways, and that you are able to lean in and draw near to Him each day of this entire month right here at the start of the summer season. And I also hope this podcast, specifically this series on Hot Topics, can be part of your daily walk with the Lord. I’m so thankful you’re listening to the show today as we discuss the second topic in this series…the power of forgiveness. Let’s jump right in.
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Well, here we are again taking a hard look at the hard parts of life in this world, but doing so through the lens of God’s Word.
His promises, they are for us and they for our good and they for His glory. Let’s treat them like we believe that. And handle them with care, if you will. Believing they are true, expecting results based on what God has stated in the Bible, and seeking His glory and honor, not our own. The servant is not greater than the Master, those are the words of Jesus, and they are words that help us when we struggle with forgiveness. I’m not talking about surface level forgiveness, where you paint with such a broad brush and have a “of course we all need grace and forgiveness” - while that is totally true, it can be hard to swallow on a personal level at times. So in total honesty, I will tell you that I have had to forgive and then forgive again and then a few more times the same exact person for one singular issue…because it was big. Bigger than me or my ability to just let it go, let it drift off into the vast sea of forgiveness…I needed help. God-sized help. I needed some promises about this hot topic. And I found them. And they did what God intended for them to do (as His Word always does, it never returns to Him void.)
There is an actual difference between forgiveness and the feeling of forgiveness. Feelings are so fickle, aren’t they? Sometimes our feelings are just basically useless. Nacho Libre quote coming at you: You are useless, Ignasio… Have you ever had a time when your feelings were so wrong, so off the mark, that by believing and accepting those feelings you ended up in a world of hurt? Like a whole mess came as a result of trusting in the soundness of your feelings. *Does it sound like maybe I’m speaking from personal experience? Cuz it should sound that way, since that would be the truth.
This is what makes forgiveness a hot topic, part of this podcast series. The vast difference that lies between Biblical forgiveness and the “feeling” of forgiveness. They are not the same thing. Sure, we know this. You already know this. And yet, we still struggle with the reality of it in our own lives, in those super hard places where we were so wronged, so damaged, used and abused, or our spouse or our kids or our bff or our parents or grandparents, our pastor…you know, people who mean so much to us, they were done wrong and man it can be a big hurdle for us to forgive what has been done to others by others. Cuz hey look, the horrors of the Holocaust were done to actual people by actual people…and a broad, sweeping, overarching decision to “forgive” the German War Machine is something, I suppose, but whatever that something would be it certainly is not forgiveness. We don’t need to forgive things. We are called by God’s Word to forgive people. And it can be so, so difficult.
Now, what about when you have forgiven, like you really truly have, but then out of the seeming blue, this anger arises and oh what am I to do with these emotions, they are strong and powerful emotions, and I already forgave! Why is this reemerging? Well, there can be a ton of reasons why it’s cropping up again, and what I have found is that often we really did forgive. And then, God allows a layer of something that needs healing in us, for our own good and for His glory, to show up, to appear, and then, by choosing to forgive yet again, there is like some maturity and healing and growth that takes place. God uses it for our good, and for Kingdom purposes because it invariably leads us to have more compassion, more empathy, opens new doors to minister to people (which is really a beautiful way to point them to Jesus, the One who holds their eternal life in His hands). So sometimes, for sure, we have to forgive. And then, forgive the same person for the long-past offense or crime against us (you can phrase it any number of ways - the wrong thing done to us or to our loved one). It can feel like we took several steps backward when that feeling came up again and we had forgive again. But what if it is actually a path to several big leaps forward? Not baby steps forward, but giant leaps forward? Spoiler alert: that’s actually what is going on in our spiritual life, our spiritual development, when we forgive the same person for the same issue yet again.
Forgiveness is a heart issue. But we don’t have to feel all warm and fuzzy in our “heart” in order to really extend forgiveness. We can feel just as upset after we genuinely forgive someone as we did the moment before we choose to forgive. Forgiving from our heart doesn’t mean we will “feel” some certain way; it means we choose some certain way. And that way is the way of Jesus, the One who died for us to receive forgiveness. If you struggle with the way you feel, don’t confuse that with having an unforgiving heart. Not necessarily the same thing.
Forgiveness is a decision. And it isn’t a decision we should put off until we have a change of heart or feel like forgiving.
Extend it today, because in light of the Bible verses I am about to share with you, it is a really bad decision to put off, even for one single solitary day.
Ephesians 4:32 says in the ESV - Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.
God forgave you. So you also must forgive.
Mark 11:25, the very words of Jesus, from the ESV - And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.
Forgive who? Of what?
Anyone. Of anything.
And then what?
Your Father who is in heaven will forgive you of your, in the plural, trespasses.
Matthew 6:15, more words in red, words Jesus Himself spoke, still referencing the ESV - But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
Well now, there is some bit to those words! Like, ouch. I feel that. And it is painful. Jesus says I must forgive, because if I don’t, I won’t be forgiven. Those are His words. And I am pretty sure He was serious when He spoke them, and is equally serious about forgiveness today.
We have to do it, this act, this decision, of forgiving. We have to. We must. Because our Lord, our Master, our King, says so.
Matthew 26:28 - For this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for the many for the forgiveness of sins. Jesus speaking (from the ESV).
Think about that. How can we not make the decision to forgive when this is what it cost our beloved Savior? If we love Him, it should not be easy for us to refuse to forgive. Hopefully, as we grow up to more and more maturity in the Lord, we will be more and more unable to extend forgiveness, and quickly!
Luke 23:34, spoken by Jesus while He was on the cross - And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
Oh, this just wrecks me. How dare I not forgive? Oh Lord, make me quick to forgive! When I don’t think I can do it, may Your Spirit move and enable me to! To only forgive, to always forgive. I need to live my life like that.
Matthew 6:12, from the Lord’s prayer - And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
Jesus was teaching His followers how to pray (not a by rote, verbatim, able to spew it out each day from memory while scrolling Instagram or running through my to-do list, not even engaging as I pray… how to pray, not what exact words to say, cuz I’m not sure that by rote not even clued in stuff can really be called praying…) And so, as He was teaching them how to pray, this was part of that “how”.
Forgive. Just like you’ve been forgiven. Remembering to be grateful to God for the gift of forgiveness makes the act of forgiving so much easier. I have no right to hold a grudge, to refuse to forgive. I’ve been forgiven of so, so much. And I need to make the choice to forgive a part of my prayer life. Did you catch that? Lord, how should we pray? Teach us to pray!
Pray like this: forgive us, as we have also forgiven.
When forgiving is part of our praying, believe me you, things change as to how much sway our little old feelings have over us. It reframes things, and it refocuses things.
I have two more verses to share, both from the New Testament, and I chose them intentionally, because I think it is really a big deal to know what the early church was instructed to do about a certain topic and then for us, the modern church, to do what the book says.
Matthew 18:21-22 (ESV) - Then Peter came up and said to Him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.”
Some versions say seventy times seven. And I have read that the implication was one person sinning against one other person this many times in a single day…the new round of forgiveness would start again the next day. (And for the Jewish people, each day begins as the sun sets, so each evening would be time to let out that deep sign and begin forgiving again…as in, you literally would not allow the sun to go down on your anger since the new day was beginning as the sun was setting.)
Colossians 3?13 - Bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you must also forgive.
It’s not my intention to push you around with the Bible, to shame you (because shame is a tool and tactic of the enemy, and God does not want His people to use satan’s means to try and accomplish His will, so there is no guilt or shame in this message today.)
I just want you to hear the Word of God on this very hot topic, and to know that you don’t have to feel like forgiving in order to actually forgive. It’s just a decision, it is a simple but important act of obedience to what our Lord has told us we must do. And we must forgive, or we will not be forgiven.
Oh yeah, this is for sure a hot topic.
But what promise for us, what hope for us, when we live forgiving others. We cannot even begin to imagine how the Lord will use the life of one of His followers who is so all-in when it comes to forgiving that they don’t know how not to forgive. What might He do with such a life?
You could be that one.
Don’t wait another day, another hour, if you know you need to do some forgiving. Do it now, make the decision, and watch God be honored and blessed and bless you in return, because He is such a generous and loving God.
Thanks for joining me today for Part Two of the Hot Topics series.
