Forgiveness

Forgiveness is the key word around our house this week. My pastor preached on the topic from Philemon Sunday. The previous week, my daughter's Sunday School lesson was on that topic, though she was visiting her brother in another state. But the lesson was put up on podcast and she has since listened to it.

The person who most recently offended her in such a major way is unlikely to ever ask for forgiveness, and in that case, it is easy to just not offer it. However, that is not good for her (or for her mother who tends to take up her battles, too). As my pastor observed, "Forgiveness is for intentional, deep, personal hurts inflicted."

All of us have suffered those hurts and we need to forgive those who hurt us. Not doing so hurts us and affects us. The inflictor may never suffer those effects, but not forgiving a hurt poisons us and spreads like a contagious disease through future events.

As we have talked, I have seen that some of my daughter's insecurities are rooted in previous events that have never been fully resolved and harboring those resentments has led to her tainting current events and even steering those events into inevitable failures.

Her Sunday School teacher pointed out the difference between living by the Law (and Hebrews 7:19 says in part, "that the Law made nothing perfect") and living by grace. In other words, there is no way to be perfect according to the law, so we must depend on grace.

In Philemon, Paul appeals to this master, Philemon, to extend forgiveness to his runaway slave, Onesimus. This was a capital offense, not to mention that Onesimus apparently stole from the master before his flight to Rome where he met up with Paul and Paul led him to the grace of Jesus Christ.

When faced with questions regarding forgiveness, Jesus shared a story about a man who owed an unfathomable amount to his master, but when he begged for understanding from the master, it was granted to him and his entire debt was forgiven.

However, the forgiven man immediately left the presence of the master and encountered another man who owed him a sum of money and demanded instant payment. When that man could not pay the debt immediately, the first servant had him imprisoned. Once the first master learned of this, he had that first servant tortured and imprisoned also. (Matthew 18:21-35)

Even though we have been the recipients of the greatest forgiveness of all, we hesitate to forgive others. And we want to keep a record of how magnanimous we have been by lowering ourselves to forgive others. We overlook this one fact pointed out by my pastor: I will never forgive an offense greater than the one God has forgiven me.

Finally, since we tend to cling to things like pride, anger, resentment, and entitlement in our quest to justify not forgiving an offense, I was also quite touched by the way Paul began his letter to Philemon. "Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus...." Though Paul was imprisoned by the Roman Empire, he didn't credit them with that imprisonment. Nor did he see it as a victory for Satan that he was held there and unable to make his missionary journeys. He recognized that he was exactly where God wanted him to be and in the circumstances God wanted him to experience for His ultimate glory. Sometimes, we need to offer forgiveness so that we recognize when we offend someone else and will truly appreciate their forgiveness.

And in so doing, we also can appreciate the amazing gift of grace and forgiveness offered to us by a loving Heavenly Father. I hope you have accepted that gift. If not, I urge you to contact someone who can help you understand and experience that gift.