If you are harboring unforgiveness, it is time to let it go
Every year on New Year’s Eve, my wife and reveal our “words of the year.” This is something we pray about in advance and then focus on during the year in books and devotionals we read.
This year, I felt God nudging me toward the word “forgiveness.” I’ve read two books on the subject already and the interesting thing is others are focused on this word too.
Tim Keller just released a book entitled, “Forgive” and he says it is the most important need for the American culture and church right now in this moment.
So I guess I can say that me, God and Tim Keller are all on the same page.
Let me draw your attention to a parable in Matthew 18: 21-35
Jesus used this story to drive home the main reason why we should forgive those who have hurt us, and the reason is not what we might think.
It begins with Peter who says, "Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?" (Matthew 18:21)
In response to the question about how often one should forgive, Jesus gave his disciple Peter a seemingly impossible number, 70 times 7. He could have left the issue at that, but then Jesus told a story that revealed why Peter should choose to forgive without exception, without limit.
You are probably familiar with the king who is settling accounts and forgives a servant who owes him 10,000 talents. This is equal to 200,000 years of labor. The equivalent value now is $3.48 billion. In other words, he owed an amount that would be impossible to pay back.
The servant begged. The king forgave. The servant then tried to collect 100 Denarii from a fellow servant. (Pocket change compared to his debt). He would not forgive his debt and when word got back to the King who orders the merciless servant to be delivered over to the tortures until the previously forgiven debt should be paid.
This is a rough story for sure, but Jesus wasn't done. The main point of the story was left. What is the connection between unforgiveness and suffering?
Jesus tells us in Matthew 18:35: "So my heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you from his heart does not forgive his brother his trespasses."
His teaching here is startling and shocking. Jesus teaches that the Father will deliver us into suffering if we do not forgive others from our hearts.
Most people harboring unforgiveness know they should forgive those who have harmed them, but they do not.
What is our liberating truth, our missing motivation to forgive? The reality that God releases us to suffer if we don't.
What does this mean?
It means that there are always consequences, real and painful consequences to our unforgiveness. If we think our unforgiveness could be pushed down, hidden away without effect, we are wrong.
When we fail to forgive others and ourselves, God takes away the protection of His peace. The implication of that varies depending on our circumstances, but are always negative.
What is the point of all this? The connection that Jesus makes between unforgiveness and torture is real, it is not imaginary, it is not symbolic, it is not abstract, nor are the words of Jesus an overstatement.
When we do not forgive a person who has hurt us, or if we cannot forgive ourselves for something we have done, we make a prison out of our own heart.
Eventually, the pain and the darkness in our heart seeps out. It intrudes into our lives. We experience all kinds of painful results, all because of unforgiveness.
Freedom can only happen when we open our heart to release the offender. Freedom can only come through forgiveness and until we forgive completely, keeping even one person in that prison affects the rest of our lives.
If you are
harboring unforgiveness toward another person or even yourself it is time to
release it. It will bring peace to your life and revival to our churches.
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