Forgiven
“Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Luke 23:34
To forgive means that you have been hurt, that your rights have been violated, and that you are willing to give up your right to redress or to compensation for what has happened to you.
The Bible says to “Be kind, one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake has forgiven you.” That phrase, “even as God for Christ’s sake has forgiven you,” is the model of our learning to forgive.
Because God has forgiven us, we have no right to refuse to forgive others and ourselves as well. The true nature of forgiveness demands that the act of wrongdoing be put completely away to let God deal with it. God’s forgiveness is the model.
“As far as the east is from the west, so far has God removed our transgressions from us.” Psalm103:12. Scientists have measured the distance from the north to the south pole to be 12,420 miles, give or take a few inches, but the east and the west, never meet!
When you forgive someone, you have to bury the wrong done to you and treat it as though it had never happened. Two men were discussing the reactions of their wives when they get into arguments, and one said, “Well, when we get into an argument, my wife gets historical.” “No,” remarked his friend, “you mean she gets hysterical.” “No,” replied the first. “I used the right word. I meant historical because she keeps bringing up the past.”
True forgiveness puts the deed aside as though it had never taken place. “Well, I’ll forgive you this time, but if you ever do this again, we are through.” Is that really forgiveness? It is merely an indefinite probation, the breach of which brings the full weight of the law for the first offence.
When the widow of a doctor in private practice looked over the books of her deceased doctor husband, she discovered that he had written, “Forgiven – too poor to pay” across the page of many who owed her husband huge sums of money, and she, not having the grace to forgive so much, went to court to collect. The judge threw out the case. “What has been forgiven in his own handwriting,” he contended, “cannot be collected by another.” When the Judge of the Universe forgives you, the issue is settled once and for all. Forever!
“Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you” Colossians 3:13