Skip to main content

True Forgiveness

Christian Forgiveness does not:
  • Say that it doesn’t matter
  • Pretend that we have not been hurt
  • Simply obeying a command to do so
  • Simply “forgive & forget”
  • Find an excuse for what has been done
  • Gain peace at any price (sometimes involves a conflict)
  • Leave it with God (i.e. in a way that avoids personal responsibility)
  • Always end in complete reconciliation (between the people involved)
  • Come without restitution
Christian Forgiveness does:
  • Begin with an understanding of what Christ has done
  • Refuse to take revenge (c.f. Romans 12:19)
  • Require an act of the will, not just a feeling
  • Face reality (it is very often painful, but necessary)
  • Accept and forgive ourselves
  • Recognise God’s love and His justice go hand in hand

Meg Guillebaud’s book, “After the Locusts” is a story of the genocide that occurred in Rwanda during 1994, and the following years of healing and forgiveness still taking place. Meg goes through the idea of practicing forgiveness and makes a distinction between that and trust and is careful to not fall into the trite and false idea of what it really entails for each of us.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Families' Fridays

From Focus on the Family 10 helpful tips for single parents Imagine this: you’re the sole parent for your children. You get them up, get them fed and send them to school. You do the housework, maybe you go to work yourself, you get home and you’re still the only adult there. There’s no one to relieve you. No one to pass the baton to while you take a shower or take a few minutes for yourself. You make dinner and gather the family around the table to eat. You play with them, read to them, give them baths, get them to bed and there’s no one there to sit with and process your day. There’s no one there to laugh with you or pray with you. Instead you keep working. You clean up the house again. You pack lunches for the next day. And you eventually crash into bed, knowing you’ll be doing the same thing tomorrow. For many, this is not an imagined scenario. When you parent alone – whether due to divorce, the loss of your spouse or having a spouse who works away from home for long periods of...
Post a Comment
Read more

Death For a Believer

We picture death as coming to destroy; let us rather picture Christ as coming to save. We think of death as ending; let us rather think of life as beginning, and that more abundantly. We think of losing; let us think of gaining. We think of parting; let us think of meeting. We think of going away; let us think of arriving. And as the voice of death whispers,  "You must go from earth," Let us hear the voice of Christ saying, "You are but coming to me."   Norman Macleod
Post a Comment
Read more

Let Me Introduce

It is almost a joke to imagine I am introducing John MacArthur Jr. to you.  In our circles of evangelicalism his is a well known name.  He has spoken at the national convention of our Fellowship of Evangelical Baptists on at least three different occasions.  However, the last of these was almost twenty years ago.  I believe that is because we have changed as a Fellowship and have strayed from the message that Dr. MacArthur preaches.  Dr. MacArthur has served his congregation since 1969.  That, in itself, should commend this man's message to us. As a pastor, I appreciate his commitment to the expository preaching of the Bible.  He has published an entire New Testament commentary set based upon his faithful preaching of the text.  I have never met this man personally, but I have appreciated him laying down a faithful path which younger men, like myself, have been able to follow. Grace to You  
Post a Comment
Read more