Forgive To Be Forgiven

Forgiveness is very important and at the end of the day not forgiving just makes people bitter and negative towards themselves and others. My mind has a big mouth on it and keeps shooting off, I must reign it to the will of Jesus and God to please Jesus and God.
 
You're right! There are physical effects of holding onto grudges and refusing to forgive. In addition to losing God's forgiveness, we only hurt ourselves by refusing to forgive. We can't begin to heal until we've made the decision to forgive.
 
Hi guys,
I'm going through a very rough time in my life and part of it is from unforgiveness. I have seen so many people toss around the word forgiveness like it was a sofa cushion or something. I hear people say they have forgiven others for a past wrong, but I've seen where they didn't REALLY forgive. They just say they did, plaster a smile on thier faces and then secretly fume..... all the while harboring hatred for the person who wronged them.
I'm not going to be that kind of christian. I know I'm having trouble with forgiveness and I freely admit it. I will not worry about how I may look to others. I only know I must find a way to deal with this.
A lot of people are so afraid of looking bad they refuse to admit(confess) much of anything. What is worse having? unforgiveness or pretending to have forgiven?
 
They are equally bad, my friend, as they are both sinful behaviors. 2 Timothy 3:5 and Hebrews 12:14-15 explain further.

With that said, coming from a person who had to learn to forgive at a very tender young age, it is really an issue you have with God. Not between you and them. Yes, absolutely, you were wronged; I believe you and take you at your word and know the pain it is to carry the burden of unforgiveness and the burden of the MEMORY of the offense(s). But if GOD tells you you must forgive, its not an option. Luke 6:37 Matthew 6:14 Mark 11:25 and Matthew 18:23

So since it is a command, you have but one choice that will deliver you from this burden. The question becomes How?! Romans 12:18 says you can only control you. With that being your goal, you make a choice to "leave it at the Cross" which is to mean truly trust Jesus that He will be the One who will deal with the other person in His Own perfect way. Put down the heavy yoke of unforgiveness and decide to be yoked together with Him in this issue (by virtue of you LETTING Him have the control) and He is faithful to deal with the other person. Also, Jesus says to pray for our enemies. Jump over to Jesus' side of the issue and go from there would be my advice. You really have no choice if you want His peace in this issue, IMO.

I will pray for you during this difficult time. Blessings to you as you search for His truth!
 
Dan, I think Covered by Grace said it very well.
I would just remind you that forgiveness is not about forgetting or repressing the hurt feelings and emotions. It's simply saying, "You have hurt me but I'm choosing not to hold it against you. I won't bring it up or throw it in your face." It's not until we take that first step of choosing to forgive that our pain will begin to heal.
We're human, we're not perfect - we're bound to struggle with forgiveness especially when someone hurts us deeply. But if you struggle, bring it to Jesus and he will give you the strength.
The danger comes in when we won't even make an effort to forgive and we choose to be bitter, resentful and unforgiving.
Take steps towards forgiveness, even if they're baby steps and God will give you strength.
 
I hear people say they have forgiven others for a past wrong, but I've seen where they didn't REALLY forgive. They just say they did, plaster a smile on thier faces and then secretly fume..... all the while harboring hatred for the person who wronged them.

35 “So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses.”

Jesus touched on that. He said forgive from the heart. Jesus wants true, genuine forgiveness. God can see the heart and he knows whether we're genuine or whether we're faking it.
 
Guys,
First and foremost. I truly want to thank you for your words of truth and wisdom. I know I must find a way to forgive. I simply must. My salvation may very well hang on this issue alone. You must know, this is not only about a multitude of crimes committed against me as a child but is something my mother and siblings conduct up to this day. I am truly trying to forgive ,and at one point thought that I had, only to have them plot and betray and thieve yet again with no confession...no repentence...and no atonement for the ongoing wrongs. They all claim to be christians. In my book they are perveyors of iniquity and are hypocrits. For years I pandered to them and tried to pretend all was well and they would never harm me or my family again. I was oh so wrong.
I wound up on disability from an anxiety disorder that led to a further breakdown when all the childhood memories broke loose and flooded me.
I want to ask you guys your opinion about something I just felt I had to do. I released a video on youtube called ...Mark's life part 1 of 100.. if you would please watch it and tell me if you think it would be therapeudic for me to tell my life's story or continue pacing my floors late at night having hypothetical conversations with myself as to what really happened and what in the name of heaven is thier motivation...is life all about money? Why has my mother ordered my siblings not to grant my request for DNA testing?
If I am to just keep everything in then there is no point in me continuing on this forum...because I simply can't hold it in anymore.
 
Forgiveness does not mean that you continue to allow yourself to be victimized. It doesn't mean that you trust someone who continues to be unrepentant and untrustworthy. Often it is necessary to maintain boundaries in order to have a healthy relationship with someone. In fact, those boundaries and proactive relationship strategies not only protect yourself, they often help the other person become healthier themselves.

Realizing this may help you to forgive in not placing a burden upon you of continuing to be subject to another's harm. Forgiveness also releases you from the necessity of retaliation, vengeance, or compensation. You cannot get your childhood back, and it is beyond your mother's or your sibling's power to give it back to you. Forgiveness releases you from the impossible expectation that they can pay you back for what they have taken from you.

It can be therapeutic to share your story. The question being what would be the proper venue for doing so. Since you can be anonymous here (I edited your post above slightly for that purpose) you can share it in the Marriage and Relationships forum. I'm not sure how suited YouTube is for sharing your story - I suppose it depends on how it is shared. Probably ideal would be to share your story with a counselor or therapist which assures confidentiality and a professional response. Here you will get a mixed bag of responses and YouTube is....well...YouTube. If you've spent any time reading YouTube comments on videos, you know what I'm talking about.
 
They are equally bad, my friend, as they are both sinful behaviors. 2 Timothy 3:5 and Hebrews 12:14-15 explain further.

With that said, coming from a person who had to learn to forgive at a very tender young age, it is really an issue you have with God. Not between you and them. Yes, absolutely, you were wronged; I believe you and take you at your word and know the pain it is to carry the burden of unforgiveness and the burden of the MEMORY of the offense(s). But if GOD tells you you must forgive, its not an option. Luke 6:37 Matthew 6:14 Mark 11:25 and Matthew 18:23

So since it is a command, you have but one choice that will deliver you from this burden. The question becomes How?! Romans 12:18 says you can only control you. With that being your goal, you make a choice to "leave it at the Cross" which is to mean truly trust Jesus that He will be the One who will deal with the other person in His Own perfect way. Put down the heavy yoke of unforgiveness and decide to be yoked together with Him in this issue (by virtue of you LETTING Him have the control) and He is faithful to deal with the other person. Also, Jesus says to pray for our enemies. Jump over to Jesus' side of the issue and go from there would be my advice. You really have no choice if you want His peace in this issue, IMO.

I will pray for you during this difficult time. Blessings to you as you search for His truth!

As always........well thought out and said.

I learned a long time ago that if I did not forgive someone who wronged me in some way.........the feelings I harboured against him, actually allowed that person to controle my life by proxy.
 
As always........well thought out and said.

I learned a long time ago that if I did not forgive someone who wronged me in some way.........the feelings I harboured against him, actually allowed that person to controle my life by proxy.

One of the churches along the highway I live off of has a sign up: "He who angers you controls you" ...
 
Guys,
First and foremost. I truly want to thank you for your words of truth and wisdom. I know I must find a way to forgive. I simply must. My salvation may very well hang on this issue alone. You must know, this is not only about a multitude of crimes committed against me as a child but is something my mother and siblings conduct up to this day. I am truly trying to forgive ,and at one point thought that I had, only to have them plot and betray and thieve yet again with no confession...no repentence...and no atonement for the ongoing wrongs. They all claim to be christians. In my book they are perveyors of iniquity and are hypocrits. For years I pandered to them and tried to pretend all was well and they would never harm me or my family again. I was oh so wrong.
I wound up on disability from an anxiety disorder that led to a further breakdown when all the childhood memories broke loose and flooded me.
I want to ask you guys your opinion about something I just felt I had to do. I released a video on youtube called ...Mark's life part 1 of 100.. if you would please watch it and tell me if you think it would be therapeudic for me to tell my life's story or continue pacing my floors late at night having hypothetical conversations with myself as to what really happened and what in the name of heaven is thier motivation...is life all about money? Why has my mother ordered my siblings not to grant my request for DNA testing?
If I am to just keep everything in then there is no point in me continuing on this forum...because I simply can't hold it in anymore.

Just remember you aren't a Christian because you forgive. You forgive because you are a Christian who has had a true revelation of Jesus's unconditional love and mercy.

Sorry to hear of bad things happening to you! You are fully entitled to judge in love. If someone calls themself a Christian THEY OPEN THEMSELVES to judgement according to Christian standards. You have every right to get it off your chest. Approach your family and say X and Y was not Christian. You were Christian behinds, Jesus would NEVER have done such. BUT then YOU be a Christian and SHOW mercy. DON'T embarrass them in front of anyone. Settle the dispute quietly on the side as if YOU were in their shoes. Do unto others as you would like them to do unto you. Hitler loved to hurt others but he committed suicide because he knew if they got hold of him he would suffer. Now imagine he knew a true Christian would get hold of him? He should NOT want to commit suicide, but rather get on his knees and repent knowing how much mercy has been shown to him by others forgiving him. You have a BIG opportunity to show immense love and mercy to your family that could almost guarantee them repenting from hypocrisy and making their way to heaven or repay the hurt done and watch them suffer in hell for eternity, the choice is yours!
 
Just remember you aren't a Christian because you forgive. You forgive because you are a Christian who has had a true revelation of Jesus's unconditional love and mercy.

Sorry to hear of bad things happening to you! You are fully entitled to judge in love. If someone calls themself a Christian THEY OPEN THEMSELVES to judgement according to Christian standards. You have every right to get it off your chest. Approach your family and say X and Y was not Christian. You were Christian behinds, Jesus would NEVER have done such. BUT then YOU be a Christian and SHOW mercy. DON'T embarrass them in front of anyone. Settle the dispute quietly on the side as if YOU were in their shoes. Do unto others as you would like them to do unto you. Hitler loved to hurt others but he committed suicide because he knew if they got hold of him he would suffer. Now imagine he knew a true Christian would get hold of him? He should NOT want to commit suicide, but rather get on his knees and repent knowing how much mercy has been shown to him by others forgiving him. You have a BIG opportunity to show immense love and mercy to your family that could almost guarantee them repenting from hypocrisy and making their way to heaven or repay the hurt done and watch them suffer in hell for eternity, the choice is yours!


KingJ, I would like nothing more than to become reconciled to my mother and siblings or half siblings or whatever their biological connection is to me, but I have been told by an aunt that I should not expect anything from these people.
You see, I'll give you an example of what my older brother said and then tried to do to me after I went on disability. He kept attempting to get me to buy a silencer( a federal offence). I kept reminding him it was a felony to own,buy,sell or even be in possession of a silencer. He then tried to get me to purchase an assault rifle from a particular individual(no doubt an informant with an illegally modified weapon). Again I refused. He had been brazenly telling me how he had just come across $50k and didn't have to pay taxes. He went on to tell me how he was putting a $100k life insurance policy on our mother and wanted me as a beneficiary. I refused and told him I didn't feel comfortable at all with that and warned my mother what was going on. At this he became furious that I wasn't taking any of his bait and began telling other family members that I was faking my disability and wanted nothing to do with them. We were left out of any further family gatherings. These people are out for blood and seek my demise at any cost and want to cash in on the bounty on my head set by my former employer and disability carrier. They salivate at the thought of tax-free cash at my family's expense. These same people go to church and raise their hands in praise. They say all the right things but their hearts are as black as sin. My sister is even a priest in the Episcopal Church. Her own children refused to go to her ordination because of her affair she is having with her mentor from Cambridge. He followed her back here to the US so they could continue the adultery under her husband's nose. It is all so very sick.
 
We don't forgive to please ourselves or others, we forgive to please God and Jesus. Let that reason be the focal point for forgiveness.

You may not forgive to please others, but if you forgive others and yourself will be pleased. AND there is great personal relief from forgiving as well. It's not all about Jesus, we still have to live our lives and HE is there to guide us in living our lives. OUR LIVE entertwines with other lives, touches them and we are the catalysts for dispersal of His love. Forgiveness is part of that love. You were made to be His tool. Be a good tool. He uses you through your every day life, so you can't separate the everyday life out of the mix.

Too many put God on an iconic pedestal, and actually idolize Him. As oxymoronic as that may sound. They put such an emphasis on the supernatural, they lose touch with the natural. We LIVE IN THE NATURAL and are expected to perform IN THE NATURAL for Him.

Forgiveness is love. You can't feel love, if you can't give love. Without love, you got problems, 1 john 4:16-18
 
Imagine, if you will, someone pounding you in the face every time they see you. They don't stop doing it except at their pleasure. They don't acknowledge the pain they are causing, they relish the pain. They don't intend to stop. In fact, they refuse to cease. They enlist others, including your own children to assist. Because they refuse to do anything to alleviate the suffering, they refuse to acknowledge their guilt, much less apologize.
Some of you have shared that you too had to learn to forgive a past wrong. But I know of noone who has to endure the ongoing daily wrath of vicious people in the present. This is the delimna I face. This is happening NOW.
I will share a dream I had a while back........It's a warm sunny day. I'm in a low-walled courtyard . The walls are about chest high and they are painted white like a courtyard you might see on a Mediterreanean island. There are small trees in the courtyard and picnic tables. My siblings are there and all is good and fine. We are laughing and enjoying each others' company. I notice my mother through a thin wrought-iron gate standing outside the courtyard. The gate is closed and locked from the inside but easily unlocked if so desired. I notice she seems happy to see us all enjoying each others' company, and yet, there is a look of sadness that she is not there as well. I start to walk over to the gate to unlock it so she may enter. I was stopped in my tracks by either a voice or an overwhelming feeling that I am to not let her in. That she is where she is to be and we siblings are where we are meant to be. I felt sad, perplexed and yet accepting of the revealed situation. Then I awoke.
I don't know if this was a dream telling me all will be fine in the Kingdom and we will be recounciled there or was this just a dream of subconscious wishfulness.
Does this mean that down in my heart I have and/or will forgive them and this dream is how the Lord has let my spirit know that, even though the situation is presently devestating and infuriating he knows my heart and that ultimately it is a forgiving heart? Or am I being delusional and in denial of my unforgiveness?
There is a verse where a man cries out"Lord I believe. Help my unbelief" and the Lord shows him mercy. Can the same apply here? "Lord I forgive. Help my unforgiveness"?
I do thank you for saying I do not have to tolerate the emotional abuse as part of any forgiveness because if I have to keep on taking hit after hit then they will have succeeded in spiritually murdering me. I just can't deal with them anymore unless they repent.
 
Some of you have shared that you too had to learn to forgive a past wrong. But I know of noone who has to endure the ongoing daily wrath of vicious people in the present. This is the delimna I face. This is happening NOW.
Suffering for a Christian is pretty much a guarantee. If God removes you from your ungodly family members then what hope have they got? God has chosen to put you with them. If He has not yet removed you from them, then He has NOT yet removed you for a reason. Don't you know that our lives are pre-destined by God? Remember YOU are dead, it is Jesus that lives now. So ask yourself, what would Jesus do?

Dan, perhaps start your own thread if you want to continue your personal discussion, we are hijacking this thread ;).
 
It is impossible to receive God's forgiveness and then be unwilling to forgive others.
The problem is, too many people have not yet realized their true spiritual condition (that being poor and needy) as Jesus begins in Matt 5
As those who have realized this, will then mourn over that sinful condition (GODLY sorrow leads to repentance)
Then and only then does the comforter come. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
As long as one compares his or herself to their fellow servants, as the pharisee to the publican, they cannot see the kingdom of God.
Jesus said, if you were blind you would have no sin, but now you say i see, so your sin remains.
The hardest thing i've seen is a person who's never BEEN CAUGHT doing something that society would consider unacceptable, as it allows for a sense of superiority. Remember when Jesus told Simon, "Do you see this woman?", speaking of the prostitute/sinner that washed Jesus' feet with her tears.
He said to Simon, "her sins which are many have been forgiven and so she LOVES MUCH. He who has been forgiven little (In their own eyes) LOVES LITTLE, but he who has been forgiven much, LOVES MUCH.

Unwillingness to forgive puts one on God's throne and He will NOT share His throne. the devil found that out in his pride, and so will anyone else.
In fact, unforgiveness is a form of blasphemy, as it says one claims Christ but denies His character.
Blaspheme means to puncture the integrity of a thing. Kinda like a tire that gets a blowout. That tire has been blasphemed. God's character is LOVE and the most amazing thing i've come across in scripture on this subject is the parallel between 1 John 4 and Matt 7 in regard to "knowing God".
1 John says 7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9 In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. 10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

The other reference to "Knowing God" is found in verse 23 of Matt 7 and it says. "Depart from Me you who practice lawlessness. (The law is LOVE), I NEVER KNEW YOU.

I've heard it explained away by so many well meaning pastors and teachers as though there are 2 types of forgiveness, but when Paul says "Even AS God in Christ forgave you, so you also must do.", it makes it pretty clear to me that Jesus knew what He was saying in "for IF you forgive others their trespasses your Father in heaven will forgive your trespasses, but IF you don't, neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses.
It's simply because if i DIED, have been crucified with Christ, then He is now living in me and will ALWAYS forgive.

So i guess the question is really this, who is doing the living?
That can be answered by knowing who is doing the LOVING?

Thanks for your time,

paul and doulos of Jesus Christ
 
Oh, 2 final points.
1. The model prayer instructs us to be forgiven in the same manner we forgive others.
2. The word "as" signifies the importance of not only forgiveness, but reconciliation as God NEVER says,
I will forgive you, but I don't want anything to do with you anymore.

This is answered in 1 Joh 4 also, as "he who fears has NOT been perfected in LOVE, as perfect LOVE casts out fear.

I like what Andrew Murray said about it.
The fruit of the Spirit (that which comes from one who has realized their spiritual condition" is LOVE and wrapped up in that is joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faith, and self control.

In fact, LOVE is obedience, 1 Joh 5:3 and evidence of that obedience is Joy and is inevitable result of obedience.
That said, obedience is impossible in the flesh, as the flesh is enmity with God and is not subject to God, nor can it be.
But, for the JOY set before Him, He endured (obeyed), therefore God has exalted Him and given Him the Name above all names.

i love this subject incidently and have done a great deal of study on it, as without forgiveness freely received then freely given, we should expect nothing but fiery indignation and judgment to the same degree with judge a fellow servant.
 
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