FORGIVENESS & RECONCILIATION: Who Pays?
We have been talking about forgiveness in women’s step study, talking about what it means to forgive, what it takes, what it is and what it isn’t. We think of forgiveness as some type of emotional thing, but it isn’t.
- FORGIVENESS IS NOT EMOTIONAL, IT IS A DELIBERATE CHOICE
Forgiveness is an act of the will, just like love is. Love is deliberately giving of yourself for the benefit of another (notice that there is no mention of how you feel built into that definition).
John 3: 16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
Forgiveness is not forgetting what someone has done, or doing away with their responsibility for their actions, or feeling good about them, or even trusting them again. Forgiveness is a conscious decision you make to not require the other person to continually pay you for what they have done to you.
- FORGIVENESS IS A CHOICE TO SURRENDER TO AND OBEY GOD IN ORDER TO ACT AS GOD ACTS, NOT AS YOU WOULD ACT
Now, the natural, worldly response to offense is to make someone pay full restitution for what they have done – go to prison, pay a fine, do community service, be barred from certain activities for the rest of their life. You do the crime, you do the time, right?
But for Christians, the hallmark of their right standing with God is that we do things God’s way and not man’s way, which is often the exact opposite of what the world does. The wisdom of God often appears as foolishness to human understanding, but we are called to obey despite our lack of understanding or emotional response to the request.
Christians are called to ask God to enable us, by the power of His Holy Spirit living within us, to act as He would act in every situation. The phrase “What would Jesus do?” applies very well here, because Jesus is God in the flesh, and He lived a sinless life on earth, and continues to live eternally in Heaven, and in us through His Spirit.
The only way for anyone to be godly is for God’s Holy Spirit to live in and act through a person. Trying to act godly in your own power will always end up with a broken and ineffectual version of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, meekness and self-control. We really can’t do it on our own, because anything we do in our own power is always tainted with selfishness. So how does Christ “do” forgiveness?
III. FORGIVENESS IS A DECISION TO RELEASE ANOTHER FROM PAYING YOU THE PENALTY THAT THEY OWE YOU.
Forgiveness actually means that YOU CHOOSE TO LIVE WITH AND PROCESS WITHIN YOURSELF THE RESULTS OF SOMEONE ELSE’S HURTFUL ACTIONS, not requiring them to pay for the pain they have caused you. Forgiveness is a self-sacrificial expression of your love and obedience TO GOD (not your love and obedience to another person). This is important to remember – you are doing it NOT for the other person, but for GOD.
Where there is an offense, SOMEONE must pay for that offense – either the person who perpetrated the offense, or the person who was offended. Forgiveness means choosing to absorb the penalty, the repercussions of what was done wrong, within yourself, letting the person off the hook and not requiring them to repay YOU.
- THE POINT OF FORGIVENESS IS YOUR RECONCILIATION WITH THE OFFENDER AND GOD
Now, let’s clear up the meaning of reconciliation here. It does not necessarily mean getting back into a close relationship with someone. It is like reconciling someone’s tab of what they owe a business:
In accounting, reconcile means to compare two sets of records to make sure they are in agreement. One of those sets of records is usually a bank account or other type of financial account, and the other set of records is usually your accounting records.
In relationships where we have been hurt, each of us keep our own set of accounts. We each have a column of what we believe we are owed by others and what we believe we need to pay others. However, rarely does the account of one person match the account of another person. We see things differently, and it is possible that we think someone owes us something that they don’t believe they owe us.
Now for us to be reconciled with someone else, it doesn’t matter what their accounts say. We can decide to wipe out a debt we believe is owed to us, just like a business owner can wipe out a debt owed on a business account, or a restaurant manager can wipe out your bill. We can be reconciled to someone who is not reconciled with us.
Once a vendor who was owed monies decides to release a debtor from the obligation, the account is RECONCILED in the vendor’s mind. When they do their Accounts Receivable every month, they are no longer looking for payment from the person who originally owed the money, there is no balance sitting on their books to remind them continually of monies owed.
The balance is PAID IN FULL in their book of accounts, so they don’t pay that debtor any mind any more. They don’t pretend that the person didn’t buy that product, or eat at their restaurant – they simply don’t expect any payment back because they themselves have voluntarily wiped the account clean, and they don’t give it any more thought.
Now, is the account TRULY paid in full? Yes. But notice that the person who was supposed to pay never paid a cent. The business owner who told the patron that they don’t have to pay for the meal actually ate the cost of the food and servers and preparation and rent of the restaurant, and in that way, actually PAID the debt by eating the cost themselves. Someone had to pay, and the business owner decided it would be himself. He considered it the price of doing business, a way to save the business relationship by hopefully getting the client to come back at another time.
If you are continually thinking upon what others have done to you, you are refusing to wipe out their debt. Whenever it’s time to look at the ledgers and see who owes you, you dwell on it and get frustrated all over again. But it actually IS in your power to be free from the that frustration. You can deliberately choose to wipe the debt clean in your books, if not to save the relationship with that other person, at least so you don’t have to continually be frustrated from the feelings of being cheated what you believe is still owed to you.
Because isn’t that what unforgiveness is? Remembering over and over again that someone wronged you and it has never been made right? You hold their account open forever and review what they owe you, so you are never free from the memory or the hateful feeling of being robbed by another.
But Jesus showed us the answer for unforgiveness and unpaid debts. He hung on a cross and took the penalty of our sins on Himself so our accounts could be wiped clean in God’s ledger. He paid the price Himself instead of waiting for us to come up with the money, which never would have happened. He did it out of obedience to God the Father so that we could have a relationship with Jesus the Son, God the Father, and The Holy Spirit.
Romans 5: 6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
9 Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! 10 For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! 11 Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
Now sometimes, someone else has forgiven us, has zeroed out our account in THEIR books, but in OUR books, we still feel we owe them. We still need to pay them for what we did. Some people feel that way about Jesus – they don’t FEEL forgiven, because they haven’t forgiven themselves.
But our account has been paid for by Jesus’ death. God doesn’t pretend we didn’t sin. He just chose to eat the cost Himself. He is willing to mark your account paid in full. All you have to do is accept Jesus Christ as God, believe that Jesus’ death paid your sin debt in full, and accept Him not only as your Savior but also surrender to Him as Lord of your life. In faith, mark your own ledger for that account as PAID IN FULL as well. Then get on with your life, and wipe the ledger clean for others that you believe owe you.
The Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6 says:
9 “This, then, is how you should pray:
“‘Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
10 your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
11 Give us today our daily bread.
12 And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13 And lead us not into temptation,[a]
but deliver us from the evil one.[b]’
14 For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
When Jesus died on the cross, He said “It is finished.” Would you like to be able to say “It is finished” in regard to the people that still come to mind and cause you grief because of unforgiveness? Wouldn’t you like to be like that Accounts Receivable person who never even sees the forgiven debt?
Is there someone here who needs to make sure that their sin debt is paid in full and that they don’t owe God anything other than their love and obedience?
Is there someone here who needs to forgive themselves and wipe their own ledger clean?
Is there someone here who needs to wipe clean the account of someone else who you have believed still owes you something?