Recently I
told a church in the beginning stages of seeking a new pastor becoming a healthy
family of faith depended upon their ability to ask for forgiveness from and
give forgiveness to each other. There could be no spiritual health in the
congregation until everyone was willing to admit their own sins and be ready to
forgive the faults in others.
This is not
a significantly troubled church to my knowledge. They have no reason to suspect
an uprising or a split over a particular issue. They have strong leadership
among their membership, and there is a sense of unity in the congregation. They
have no church fight from which to repent.
The big
picture of the church’s health was not my focus. It was the heart of each
individual member. This was my focus and has to be the focus of those members
if they are to be spiritually prepared for their new pastor. They needed to be
able to look at each other on a Sunday morning during a time of worship and
say, “You are my brother and sister. I am not perfect. You are not perfect. Let
us celebrate God’s forgiveness so freely given.”
Holding
grudges destroys families, friendships, and churches. Nursing emotional wounds
prevents them from healing and builds barriers against restored relationships.
In the end the only person who loses is the one who refuses to forgive.
Jesus took
the concept of forgiveness beyond human relationships. He pointed to its impact
upon our relationship with God and our eternal destiny.
Mat
6:14-15 For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will
also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither
will your Father forgive your trespasses.
How we
maintain our relationships with others has a direct bearing upon our relationship
with God. As surely as we cannot separate our love of God from our love for our
neighbors (Matthew 22:34-40), so we cannot separate our willingness to forgive
our neighbor from our desire to be forgiven by God.
If I forgive
you, then I am saying I choose to see you through a different set of eyes than
if I refused to forgive you. In forgiveness I remove all thought of personal
debt. I wipe the slate clean of emotional or physical payment. I see a common
basis for our relationship. What I felt had been a wrong against me becomes a
memory that no longer can impact our relationship.
The
forgiveness can stem directly from a love which says no matter what you do, I
love you too much to remember the wrong you did to me or the pain you caused
me. Compared to my love for you, anything you do is inconsequential. Even your
repentance is not necessary for me to forgive you and seek to restore what we
had lost. You are too important to me to allow anything you do to keep me from
forgiving you.
That
forgiveness only has meaning if it is received. Jesus hung on the cross and
spoke words meant for us all.
Luk 23:34 And Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they know
not what they do."
He offered a forgiveness to all, but it only had effect on recipients
as it was accepted. To be forgiven means nothing if we refuse to acknowledge it
and receive it. When we refuse to forgive others we are saying we are good
enough to receive God’s forgiveness, but someone else is not good enough to
receive forgiveness from us. That automatically builds a wall between God’s
forgiveness and us.
When walls go up, relationships are strained or broken. A church
cannot be healthy where such tension exists. Forgiveness must be offered and it
must be received. Grudges and a right to revenge must be rejected. Only as we
forgive and willingly receive forgiveness do we move toward spiritual health in
a church and in our own lives.
