Forgiveness - How Love Wins (part 2 of 5)

Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you  Colossians 3:13

Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?" Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.  Matthew 18:21-22

Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.  Luke 6:37

For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.  Matthew 6:14-16

And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.  Mark 11:25

Jesus is very clear … Forgive…  However He does not tell us how to do so.   He gives to us the impossible mandate, something that we are incapable of doing on our own.   A command that leaves us twisted and turning knowing what He expects of us being pitted against our own desires for retribution, or at the very least, vindication.   I believe that is precisely the point, that as we make the decision to pursue forgiveness, we are naturally drawn closer to Him.  Anyone who has ever pursued the act of forgiving quickly realizes that we can not, it goes against our very nature; that the act of forgiveness is in fact a divine act, one that we are only capable of achieving with the help of God.  Thus we begin a new series on the command to forgive. 

How does a person know if he has forgiven?   It is when you have crossed over that bridge, where you no longer feel rage over the circumstances, in it’s place you feel sorrow.  The anger at the individual who has caused you such pain and suffering is replaced with a genuine emotion of feeling sorry for them.  When finally, you have nothing left to say about it all.

Writing how you know that you have forgiven is the easy part, the journey to that point, however is hard.  It’s filled with emotional upheaval, anguish, self-doubt, insecurity, and any number of false ideas.  The journey of forgiveness itself, is frequently sabotaged by ourselves before we begin.  The road towards forgiveness must begin with ‘accountability’.  As you pass through the junction of accountability there are three paths that exit the far side of it, only one of which can show you the way to forgiveness.  Some, choose the path of denial, of justification; you know who they are, it is your co-worker who blames his wife for his infidelity, the neighbor who only backed into your car because you parked in his blind spot, the employee who takes home a few items from work, because his boss doesn’t pay him enough, or the woman at church who only gossiped about you because everyone else was. 

Then there are those who choose the path of self blame,  of blaming themselves for the actions of others, the woman who tells her best friend that it is her fault that her husband is having an affair,  the neighbor who apologizes for parking where his neighbor  could back into him, the manager who thinks that if he were a better manager then his employees wouldn’t take things from the company, or the member of your church who smiles and says that it her fault that people gossip about her, because she deserves it.  

Finally there are the few, the very, very few who know that to honestly forgive someone you must first know precisely what it is that you are forgiving; you must face the truth.  Those who tell the adulteress husband that she was not there when he made the decision to betray his family, the neighbor who informs his neighbor that it was not his car that was moving when it was hit, the employer who lets an employee go because they accepted the position knowing what the benefits and requirements were, and lastly the member of your church who confronts those gossiping with a gentle reminder to read James 3

It is only when you are honest with and about yourself as well as those whom you seek to forgive that you can begin the journey.  Genuine forgiveness does not deny anger, it does not excuse evil, and it does not tolerate or smother it. Genuine forgiveness begins when we look evil full in the face, call it what it is, let it’s horror shock, stun and enrage us, only then are we capable of beginning the road to forgiving it.  

Forgiveness - How Love Wins (part 1 of 5)

Forgiveness is not something you choose to do because of who someone is, or because they have earned it; rather it is what you choose to do in spite of who they are.  Because they can never earn it; and neither can you.

"Forgiveness is the remission of sins.  For it is by this that what has been lost, and was found, is saved from being lost again" 1  "Forgiveness is the answer to the child's dream of a miracle by which what is broken is made whole again, what is soiled is made clean again" 2 

1. Saint Augustine 2. Dag Hammarskjold

Forgiveness by Mathew West

True and False Repentance (Part 4 of 4)

“Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.  See what this godly sorrow has produced in you: what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done. At every point you have proved yourselves to be innocent in this matter.”  2 Corinthians 7:10-11  

In concluding this 4 part series on true and false repentance, the distinction between them is the difference between light and darkness.   Perhaps the simplest test to ask of yourself is this:  Are you ashamed to have any person talk with you about your sins?  If you are, all you have accomplished is to experience worldly sorrow, the effects of which are short lived and contrary to what you may think, act only to drive you further from Jesus and forgiveness, then you were before.  Why then do so many, who are still unrepentant sinners, get the idea that they have repented?  The only logical reason is that within the church in America there is a wholesale lack of instruction and discernment respecting true and false repentance. 

I. What true repentance is:

II. How it may be known:

III. What is false and counterfeit repentance:
IV. How it may be known: 

How will false repentance be known? 

1.    It leaves feelings unchanged:  the disposition to sin remains unbroken within the heart.  The feelings as to the nature of sin are not changed, but rather the individual still feels a desire for sin. He abstains from it, only from the dread of the consequences of it.

2.    It leads to hypocritical concealment: The individual who has exercised true repentance is willing to have it known what he has repented.  He who has only false repentance, resorts to excuses and lies to cover his sins, he will cover up his sins with a thousand apologies and excuses, trying to smooth them over, and minimize their enormity.  He commits one sin to cover up another.  Instead of that genuine, open-hearted breaking forth of honesty and frankness, you see a smooth-tongued, half-hearted mincing of words that is intended to answer the purpose of a confession, and yet to confess nothing.  He is ashamed to have anyone talk with him about his sins, his sorrow is only a worldly sorrow, and works only death.

3.    False repentance produces only a partial reformation of conduct:  The change that is produced by worldly sorrow only extends to those things of which he has been strongly convicted of.  The nature of his heart remains unchanged.  He will only avoid those cardinal sins, about which he has been humiliated by.  He has no desire to alter or even recognize the pervasiveness of the sinful life that he lives.   Overtime you will witness that he continually relapses into his old sins. The reason is, the disposition to sin is not gone, it is merely restrained by fear, and as soon as he has a hope and is in the church, he gets bolstered up so that his fears are allayed, you see him gradually wearing back, and presently returning to his old sins.  They love to call this ‘backsliding’, or something in that vein; but the truth is, they always loved their sin, and when the occasion offered, they returned to it.

4.    Lastly false repentance leads to a hardened heart:  The individual who has this type of repentance grows harder in proportion to the number of times he is sorrowful.   If he has strong feelings of conviction, and his heart does not break in response to his guilt, the fountains of those feeling dry up, and his heart more and more difficult to be reached.   Not so a true Christian, take a real Christian, one who has truly repented, and every time the truth bears down upon him, it crushes him before God and he becomes more mellow, more easily affected, excited and broken under God's word. His heart gets into the habit of going along with the convictions of his understanding, and he becomes as teachable and as a child born again.