“Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart.” Corrie Ten Boom
Have you ever noticed that those who have committed horrible acts of betrayal eventually come around to saying one thing about those whom they betrayed? “They just need to forgive and move on…” Of course if they honestly felt like helping the wounded along in the process they would admit to their sin, repent of it, and do whatever is necessary to make amends, but therein lies the rub, the reason for them making the statement is driven more by their own desire to absolve themselves of any responsibility, to pretend that there was no harm, no foul. However selfish and self-serving the reason for making the statement, they nevertheless are correct, but for the wrong reasons.
To them and if you were to admit it, to yourself; forgiveness always seems so easy, when we need it and so hard when we need to give it. So how do we do the impossible, forgive those who are not sorry for the harm they have caused? How do we forgive when we don't feel like it?
It begins with a decision, a decision to pursue forgiveness. How do we translate the decision to forgive into a change of heart? We forgive by faith, out of obedience. Since forgiveness goes against our nature, we must forgive by faith, whether we feel like it or not. We must trust God to do the work in us that needs to be done so that the forgiveness will be complete.
I believe God honors our commitment to obey Him and our desire to please Him when we choose to forgive. However it does not happen overnight, sometimes the journey to forgiveness may take years, but we must persist in our commitment to honor Him by forgiving those who do not deserve it. In His time He will complete the work He has begun in us. We must continue to forgive (our job) by faith, until the work of forgiveness (His job) is done in our hearts.
“And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.” Philippians 1:6
Forgiveness is not saying that what the person did against you is okay, it is releasing to God that which is reserved for God. If as a Christian you accept that God is your heavenly father, how does a father respond when one of his children deliberately hurts another of his children? He does not overlook it. He acts with mercy to the injured and with justice to the guilty; always tempered with love. What someone has done against you is one thing, however if you take the bait of unforgiveness, your decision will cause much more damage then they were ever able to.
Your father wants you to forgive, because the decision to not forgive is the decision to hate; to hate another created in the same image as you were, to hate someone that God loves. Every moment you hold on to that hate, it acts like a drug slowly poisoning your soul. You cannot praise God and curse another made in His image, one is fundamentally opposed against the other. Hate or love, only one can win.
God commands you to forgive, to give you life, a future, hope. Forgiveness is an act of faith; it is the ultimate submission of your will to God’s will. To choose to forgive makes your heart more like His. Forgiveness is how love wins.
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