Forgiveness

How do we forgive one another? How do we forgive ourselves? How do receive forgiveness? What does that even mean?

Someone commented the other day that forgiveness meant forgetting an offense ever occurred. I disagree with that comment. Forgiveness is much more than losing your long term memory. Forgiveness is about knowing exactly what the other person has done and and deciding not to hold them to account.

Isaiah 43:25 says, I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions , for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more. The idea here is not one of forgetfulness. God does not forget what we have done. God CHOOSES not to bring those transgression up, not to throw them in our face. God chooses not to recite our list of wrongs over and over again.

The reciting and keeping a list of wrongs is the biggest obstacle we have when it comes to forgiving others. Many times we may want the relationship to be restored but we simply can't get past the list in our head. We try to forget it entirely, but there seems to be a switch or button that always replays the list for us once again. That is why it cannot be about forgetting. It must be about choosing not to hold the other accountable. It is about setting the offender free and, in so doing, freeing ourselves.

But, how do we forgive ourselves when we are the offender? We tend to bring up our own faults and torture ourselves with them. We find it far more difficult to "not remember" our own offenses than the offenses of others.

The doctor in the video is trying to gain forgiveness. He cannot forgive himself for what he has done. Is it possible to receive forgiveness from another if one cannot forgive himself? Will it matter how many times someone else says, Don't worry about it. It's alright, if something inside of us continues our level of anxiety and says NO, it's not alright!

The Gospel is about forgiveness. It is about living as forgiven people. How is that possible if we cannot forgive ourselves. We are not forgiven until that most harsh of taskmasters is satisfied, the taskmaster of self.

The good news of the cross is not limited to a restored relationship with our Creator. It is also about being given a new view of ourselves. We are indeed forgiven people. God has restored to us a life of purpose and taken from us the life of failure. The old things have passed away. In Christ, all things have become new.