Bible Reading: Matthew 6: 9-15
Our minds and hearts are very susceptible to clogging up by wrong attitudes towards God, to others and ourselves. Jesus words in the Sermon on the Mount shows us the cleansing agent of forgiveness is key to a process by which our relationship with God others and our own self can work properly.
1. Step One - Identifying Guilt
NIV = “Forgive us our debts.”
In Aramaic one word is used for both debt and trespass. Taken literally Jesus words could be referring to financial matters. In Greek, Matthew the word used means, “What is owed” and is used interchangeably with sins. V 14 expounds v 12 and the word used there means sin.
“We are in the land of debts; we are up to our ears in sin.” (Martin Luther)
Guilt is a powerful force in the personality. It occurs when a person fails to meet the standards they feel are expected. A person becomes disappointed and sorrowful about what they have done. They may feel that God and others are angry with them which in turn may make them fearful.
Freud maintained that the guilt itself is evil and its removal is good. One view is that if you feel guilty that you can`t keep a moral standard, change the moral standard. Christianity teaches that guilt is a proper human emotion which like pain is a sign that something is wrong. Breaking God`s laws makes a person guilty before him.
Some people do carry false guilt which may come from their own perceptions of right and wrong, or maybe wrongly imposed by other people. However many feel guilty because they are guilty. Real guilt isn`t something we can choose to have or not. It is a consequence that needs dealing with.
Praying forgive us debts” is to recognise that we have something to own up to.
Step 2
Understanding the offer
To forgive comes from a
Greek word which means to “let be or “to send away”. In relation to sin “to let be” would mean
that God will let you stay as you are. To send away just means that God
dismisses what we owe him. The Jewish
concept of sin was not just deliberate acts of rebellion against God for which
we deserve punishment but the sense of failure to fulfil an obligation to
God. When we are forgiven God just lets
that accumulated past debt go.
The word Jesus used for
“forgive them” on the cross was the same word that he used when he invited Lazarus
friends to “loose” him from the grave clothes that still clung to him. On the cross Jesus was asking God to liberate
people from their sin, to release them from the tyranny of evil in their lives
so that they could be free to become the people God intended them to be.
Forgiveness is not God sayings
sin doesn’t matter. The cross shows how seriously God treats sin and how far he
was prepared to go to show us his love.
Jesus show us that the
answer to real guilt is not denial but in asking a merciful God for forgiveness.
Christianity is more than a moralistic message calling people to obey a list of
rules but a message of grace that gives us freedom despite our guilt.
Jesus leads us down a part
of confession and repentance not so he can make us grovel in the dirt but so he
can relieve us of the burden of guilt and provide the needed forgiveness.
God`s forgiveness isn`t
God saying “Forget it” and leaving us in exactly the same condition as
before. God acknowledges our sin, hears
our confession, offers forgiveness but also the means by which the stain of sin
can be removed.
We live in a world where we are sinned against and where our own actions
and attitudes wrong others. Our sense of
justice says that something needs to happen to put the wrong right, to clear
the matter up. Our human instinct is to
punish, to seek recompense or perhaps revenge but that instinct will destroy us
if we allow it full rein. Forgiving is important for our present
wellbeing.
"He that
cannot forgive others breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass if he
would ever reach heaven." George Herbert
According to the latest medical and psychological research, forgiving is
good for our soul and our bodies.
God commands forgiving because to refuse to forgive
means we allow the one who hurt us to keep us chained in a prison of bitterness.
No human beings are more miserable than the unforgiving.
Resentment uses up emotional energy which leaves people with nothing left to give. And that affects our ability to serve God and others.
Resentment uses up emotional energy which leaves people with nothing left to give. And that affects our ability to serve God and others.
We accept people based on what they are but we have to forgive people
for the bad things that they do. The
fact that we need to forgive someone is because we have not excused them. We have held them accountable for what
they’ve done, and refused to excuse them. If you can excuse something, it
doesn’t need forgiveness. To excuse something is to say that there’s no blame.
When we forgive we are not excusing anything but what we are doing is
giving up our right to retaliate. This is an act of trust in the justice of God. You can
hand it over to him who judges justly.
"When they hurled insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered he made not threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly." 1 Peter 2:23
Jesus made it clear that there is a connection between being forgiven
and forgiving.
Gerard Kelly says that just as breathing implies both inhaling and
exhaling so forgiveness implies both giving and receiving. to breathe is to be
alive, to be forgiven is to forgive.
It is when we see the reality that we have been forgiven much that we
can forgive much.
“Be gentle with one another, sensitive.
Forgive one another as quickly and thoroughly as God in Christ forgave you.” Ephesians 4:32
The only thing harder than forgiveness is the alternative.
We cannot see forgiveness as an option. “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 you Father will not forgive your sins.”
When we forgive we come one step closer to Jesus.
We are most like
beasts when we kill
We are most like men when we judge
And we are most like God when we forgive
(Anon)
We are most like men when we judge
And we are most like God when we forgive
(Anon)
Forgiveness facts
1) Forgiveness is a choice
It
is a crisis of will. Since God requires us to forgive it is something we can
do. He would never require us to do
something we cannot do. Forgiveness is
hard for us because it pulls against our sense of justice. We want revenge of
offences suffered but we are told never to take our own revenge (Romans
1:19)
2. Forgiveness and feelings
If
we wait until we feel like forgiving. We
will never get there. However, just because forgiveness is a choice doesn’t
mean that forgiveness isn’t an emotional business. If forgiveness doesn’t visit
the emotional core of the past it will be incomplete. We must forgive from our
heart. This means that we get to the emotional root of the pain, how the event
made us feel as well as what happened.
This is essential for true healing to take place.
We
may think that it would be easier to forgive if we can rationalize someone’s
behaviour or we know that they didn’t mean to hurt us but whether we understand
the reasons for another person’s behaviour or not, we still need to deal with
the pain cause by their actions Forgiveness
comes when there is no good rationale to explain away why someone did what they did. When an action
is excusable, it doesn’t require forgiveness.
4. Forgiveness and forgetting
Many
people say, I can forgive but not forget. People who try to forget find they
cannot, the more they try to forget the more they remember.
When
God says he will “remember our sins no more” it does not mean that he literally
erases them from his memory. God is omniscient, he cannot forget. Rather it means that God will never use the
past against us and when we truly forgiveness that is what we do as well. Forgiveness surrenders the right to get
even. It
means that the past sin becomes irrelevant to our present attitude towards the
person.
5. Forgiveness is not just
negative
We
not only surrender the right to take revenge, but we also desire good things to
happen to or for the people we are forgiving.
We bless them.6. Forgiveness does not have to wait for an apology
It is sometimes said, "I’ll forgive them when they come and say they are sorry." This is not God’s way God says "I forgive you, now will you accept my offer of forgiveness by confessing and repenting?" If we wait for a confession before we forgive, most often we will be waiting a long time.
7. Forgiveness
is an act of faith
"At
last I understood. In the final analysis, forgiveness is an act of faith. By
forgiving another I am trusting that God is a better justice-maker than I am.
By forgiving, I release my own right to get even and leave all issues of
fairness for God to work out. I leave in God’s hands the scales that must
balance justice and mercy.- from "What’s So Amazing About Grace?" Philip Yancey
8. Forgiving God
Technically we can’t forgive God because he cannot commit any sin but we do need to deal with any angry feeling we have against God.
9. Forgiving is not the same thing as reconciling.
Forgiving is not tolerating sin or allowing abuse to continue unchallenged. People sometimes think that forgiving someone means we must reunite with them no matter what- that a wife must move back in with a man who cheated on her, or a businessman must take back a dishonest partner as many times as requested. Forgiveness and reconciliation are two separate things.
Forgiveness takes place within the heart of one human being. It can be granted even if the other person does not ask for it or deserve it. Reconciliation requires that the offender be sincerely repentant for the wrong he or she committed. Reconciliation requires the rebuilding of trust, and that means good faith on the part of both parties.
10. Forgiveness is not weakness.
Being a forgiving person is not being a weak martyr. It is being strong enough to be Christ-like.
Recommended reading
What’s so amazing about grace Philip Yancey
Tales of total forgiveness RT Kendall
Additional Bible verses
Matthew 7:2
Matthew 11:25
Matthew 18:21-35
Ephesians 4:32
Colossians 3:13
James 2:13
Forgiveness facts
1) Forgiveness is a choice
It
is a crisis of will. Since God requires us to forgive it is something we can
do. He would never require us to do
something we cannot do. Forgiveness is
hard for us because it pulls against our sense of justice. We want revenge of
offences suffered but we are told never to take our own revenge (Romans
1:19)
2. Forgiveness and feelings
If
we wait until we feel like forgiving. We
will never get there. However, just because forgiveness is a choice doesn’t
mean that forgiveness isn’t an emotional business. If forgiveness doesn’t visit
the emotional core of the past it will be incomplete. We must forgive from our
heart. This means that we get to the emotional root of the pain, how the event
made us feel as well as what happened.
This is essential for true healing to take place.
3. Forgiveness is not
excusing
We
may think that it would be easier to forgive if we can rationalize someone’s
behaviour or we know that they didn’t mean to hurt us but whether we understand
the reasons for another person’s behaviour or not, we still need to deal with
the pain cause by their actions Forgiveness
comes when there is no good rationale to explain away why someone did what they did. When an action
is excusable, it doesn’t require forgiveness.
4. Forgiveness and forgetting
Many
people say, I can forgive but not forget. People who try to forget find they
cannot, the more they try to forget the more they remember.
When
God says he will “remember our sins no more” it does not mean that he literally
erases them from his memory. God is omniscient, he cannot forget. Rather it means that God will never use the
past against us and when we truly forgiveness that is what we do as well. Forgiveness surrenders the right to get
even. It
means that the past sin becomes irrelevant to our present attitude towards the
person.
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