Last week we discussed forgiveness at church. The Holy Spirit spoke directly and wonderfully to all of us, and I felt inclined to share it.
It seems apropos for today, Memorial Day. As we remember those who gave their lives for our nation in service, we remember what Christ gave for our redemption and forgiveness.
Forgiveness is foreign, as in it is from a foreign country; God’s country. And only by leaving our residence and entering His domain will we ever be able to both receive and demonstrate true forgiveness.
It is difficult to forgive the simplest crimes without first receiving Christ’s forgiveness.
It is impossible to forgive betrayal without first the full revelation of what Christ forgave in us.
Christ demanded that you forgive as you have been forgiven. Refusing to do so is rebellion and idolatry.
To refuse to forgive someone is to idolize their power in your life.
Holding onto bitterness is to exalt that person’s status in your life above Christ. It is declaring that obedience to God is secondary to our pain and anger. When Christ told us to hate our mother and father, brother and sister, in order to be His disciple, He was teaching us about this alignment of love, honor and worship. Therefore, to refuse to forgive someone is to love them more than you love Christ. To lower their status, thus following Christ’s instruction to forgive and let go, we actually learn how to love that individual and all others in the process. Again, we see the strange reversed procedure of our Creator in action, akin to “the first shall be last and the last shall be first”.
If my past hurt or betrayal leaves me trembling in fear or anger at a name, it is evidence that I have exalted that person above Christ.
If sin/betrayal acted against me shakes my entire world, it is evidence that the individual was placed as God in my life, placed by me. Therefore, to be properly aligned with God as my source and purpose means no amount of betrayal from a spouse, parent, pastor or politician can ever upend me. It may sting; but to be truly in God’s arms leaves me unable to be influenced by outside forces, even those that the carnal mind would call intimate and necessary.
Forgiveness is not reconciliation. Forgiveness is the repentance and removal of the idol you have made your betrayer. Only after you have properly lowered the status of the individual, will you be properly prepared to reconcile.
To refuse to forgive is sin. To forgive is to repent.
The greatest proof of forgiveness is not whether you can forget that person and their actions, but whether you joyfully anticipate seeing them in Heaven beside you.
Keith G. Alderman 