Forgiving for who?!

I have been reading a devotional lately about forgiveness. This issue is important to me because I have had massive problems with forgiveness in my life that have led to much bitterness being stored up. Often, I have thought of the toll I have put on myself by holding grudges. Why is it so hard to let you go of them? It is almost like I enjoy holding a grudge, it becomes a part of me and the thought of losing my rage scares me.

The book made a point that I have thought before, we must make a distinction between forgiving and forgetting. Forgetting is a form of brain damage, we can't do it...only God can. Forgiving is something different, something that allows for freedom for the person wronged. God says in the Bible that we are to be angry with sin as long as it does not cause us to sin. How can we be angry and not sin?? I believe God is ok with the fact that we are angry when we are wronged. People hurt other people, it is a sad truth of our world. We should be angry at injustice of all kinds. What we must not do is becoming so entrenched in this anger that it causes us to shift the frustration from the injustice to the perpetrator. When this occurs is when we start to be put into bondage by our anger.

Another interesting thought is that forgiveness is for us and not for the person we forgive. I never really thought of it that way. We are not doing the other person a service by forgiving them. This is where I've gotten into trouble in the past...I can forgive others as long as they are sorry for what they have done. Some people aren't sorry for the wrongs they have committed and by waiting for them to be so will cause much bitterness to well up in our hearts. When we forgive others, we in essence free ourselves from the bondage that our anger puts on us.

This is easier than it sounds, but it starts with a conscious choice to declare our will to forgive. It is an instant choice that may be a process of completing. Basically, it may take time for our hearts to heal, but we must be willing to declare our intent to forgive and seek God's help. This doesn't mean we forgive and hold on to the anger, still making negative remarks towards the person. I fell into this trap for quite sometime. Forgiving means putting things behind us...not forgetting mind you, but moving on to what God has in store for us.

The most important thing to understand is that this Jesus guy radically forgave. He forgave others while He was here on Earth, and eventually He forgave us all by dying on the cross. Because we are radically forgiven is why we should do the same for others. It is not going to be easy, but let's work together as a body of believers to make it happen!