Learning to Forgive
Luke 17:1-10
The first small step in exercising our faith is learning to forgive. I want to start here because this is the one that is misunderstood the most. We are told from childhood up that we are always to forgive. Let me gently challenge that piece of advice by citing Jesus' own words. Read them and see if you catch it. He said,"If your brother sins rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, "I repent, forgive him."
We always emphasize the seven sins and the seven times we are to forgive. In other places Jesus makes it even more emphatic saying not seven but seventy times seven we are to forgive. Forgiving is right and good and holy, but we should never leave out the small word "repent."
We need to learn not just how to forgive but when to forgive. Forgiving someone who has wronged you and when they have not repented may do more harm than good. Don't send mixed signals to someone who has wronged you that he can continue to do so because you are always going to let him off the hook. Jesus says rebuke the sinner, but forgive him if he changes his way.
Corrie ten Boom graphically illustrates how hard it can be to forgive even when someone asks for that forgiveness. In the "Trump for the Lord" she tells how after the war she met a guard who had been her captor in the Ravensbruck concentration camp where her sister had died. He came forward after she spoke at a church in Munich, and though he did not recognize her said he had been one of the guards, and reached out his hand to her, asking for her forgiveness. For a moment, says Corrie. she hesitated., recalling his cruelty to her sister and those around her. Then, knowing God's warning to forgive or we cannot be forgiven(Matt. 11:26)and yet still not feeling the ability to lift her hand toward him, she prayed silently: "Jesus help me...I can lift my hand, I can do that much. You supply the feeling." And as she woodenly thrust out her hand the current of God's warmth flowed through her and out to the former guard. "I forgive you, my brother!" she cried. With all my heart." Corrie says she never has known God's love so intensely as she did then. But she knew it was not her love, for she had tried and did not have the power.
Take the step and forgive when someone repents. It is one of the primary things we do as Christians.
Questions to Ponder
Have you learned how to forgive?
Did you know that we cannot be forgiven unless we forgive?
Have you felt the current of God's love flow through you?
In His Service,
Terry Phillips
