..."forgiveness" from Charles W. Colson's book, God and the Victim...perhaps this will open people up to different ways of thinking about sin, forgiveness and the "place" the two hold in our own lives. Forgiveness is too often seen as merely an excercise in releasing bad feelings and ignoring past harm, pretending all is well. Yet nothing could be further from the truth. True forgiveness often deepens internal passion and sorrow...a central misunderstanding that fuels many other myths about forgiveness is the notion that we are to "forgive and forget." The concept comes from two major passages of scripture: psalm 24 and jeremiah 31. In psalm 25:6-7, the psalmist asks God not to remember the sins of his youth but instead to remember His mercy and love. in jeremiah 31:34, God says, "I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more." Christians are told to be like God, who does not remember sin but forgives wickedness. This would be a good principle to follow were it not for one fact: God does remember sin. We are told that one day we will all appear before God and receive our rewards based on the things done in the body, whether good or bad. God remembers sin and righteousness, and He uses the data to determine our due. When the scriptures say God has taken away our sins as far as the east is from the west (psalm 103:12) and will hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea (micah 7:19), they are using metaphors, not making statements of fact about God's loss of memory... When we try to forget the wrongs we have suffered, we lose our perspective on our personal history. In many casesm we are trying to create a less disturbing and disappointing past. Because we are terrified that we cannot face the past without being overwhelmed by pain, we never taste the wonder of God's forgiveness - both of our own sin and the sin of the those who have harmed us. The effort to erase the past fuels a spirit of independence and denial...forgiveness meant cutting losses, ignoring the pain of the past, and keeping busy enough to outpace the sadness. Yet this kind of detachment dulls the senses and distorts perspective. Zeal to forget blinds to the baggages carried from the past and strengthens determination to remain emotionally distant, rigid, and dogmatic. For most believers, the proof of forgiveness is the absence of anger. It is assumed that if you still feel a stab of betrayal when you see the perpetrator, then you haven't forgiven him. If you still seethe when you remember, then you haven't forgiven him. The proof, so it seems, is in the emotional pudding - strong emotions are evidence you have failed to forgive. Christian thinking about and living of forgiveness have too often been distorted; as a result they seem either cheap or impossible. Many attempt to put their injuries behind them through a dramatic, climactic, once-and-for-all deliverance from anger. They assume that forgiving involves a sudden, marked change from being filled with bitterness and hatred to feeling untroubled peace. Those who hold this view refer to forgiveness as a finished event (it took years before I forgave...) rather than an ongoing work of the Spirit of God. Some people do experience one climactic moment when a transition from bitterness to forgiveness takes place. The problem comes when they assume that the struggle to forgive is then over and the tumultuous feelings resolved. It is naive to believe that fogiving another, whether for a single failure or a lifetime of harm, is ever entirely finished. in truth, the more fully we face the harm we have suffered, the more deeply we must forgive. Forgiving another is an ongoing process, rather than a once in a lifetime event. The once forgiven, always fogiven approach often leads to enormous pressure to keep bad feelings at bay.Are feelings of anger or hurt contray to forgiveness? Listen to the heart of God..."Is not ephraim my dear son, the child in whom I delight? Though I often speak against him, I still remember him. Therefore my heart yearns for him; I have great compassion for him" jer. 31:20 Sin hurts God, and it draws a passionate response from Him. God speaks of His hurt and anger over the sin of His children in deeply personal terms. Our natural response to deep personal pain may be to deaden our hearts to the sorrow. God's way is different. God says He will remember the one who hurt Him, no matter how deep the anguish. God is active in His expression of holy anger. Hurt and anger are not the final proof of a lack of forgiveness. In fact, an absence of strong feelings implies a lack of the heart's involvement. When bitterness is released, there seems to be a propensity to toss holy anger out with it. True, anger can be full of sinful demands. But anger can also be a loving response to someone who has violated the beauty of God's glory and the humaness of others. Anger can reflect a passion that desires to destroy the cancerous arrogance that will eventually sap beauty and life from the offenders soul. If we forsake holy anger the passionate desire to destroy that which comremises what god intended we are apt to detach ourselves from the battle on the grounds that we are exhibiting an unforgiving spirit. We are less likely to deal with the plank in our own eye or the speck of dust in the eye of the one who hurt us. Most people assume that revenge is bad, that the desire for revenge is a base, primitive emotion that has no place in christian society. Unfortunately, we are all apt to dress the concept of forgiveness in garments that are too refined and delicate to handle the battle of life. Many christians view the disire for revenge as incompatible with love and forgiveness. Revenge seems to come from an ugly, bitter heart. But is that necessarily the case? Revenge involves a desire for justice. It is the intense wish to see ugliness destroyed, wrongs righted. Anyone who strays outside the parameters of love and acts to destroy God's order is a weed that might diminish the beauty or destroy the fruitfulness of His garden. But a comittment to God's glory is the heart of true biblical revenge. Many people believe that the person with the forgiving heart turns the other cheek. He accepts emotional and even physical harm without complaint or confrontation. This view is often encouraged by manipulative people. Forgiveness involves a courageous commitment to overcome evil with good and the good that is done is an assult against the inner cancer of arrogance and independence that, left unchecked, will eat away at the offender's soul. Overlooking harm in order to achieve a sentimental but nonsubstantive peace actually encourages sin. A forgiving heart offers a glimps of the mysterious wonder of God's character. The taste of God we have to offer others will be no greater than our own taste of God's forgiveness. Jesus said to Simon, the arrogant, legalistic Pharisee, "He who has been forgiven little loves little." Jeus seems to be saying that the energy to forgive is directly related to our awareness of how much we have been forgiven, or how deeply we deserve God's condemnation. Simon was impressed with his own command of godliness; consequently, he was not drawn to the One who can forgive sin. We need faith to see our own sin because our deceit makes us compare our sin with that of others and blinds us to our own need for forgiveness. Faith occasionally enables us to glimps the depths of why we need God's ongoing mercy. Through faith we see beyond our presumption of innocence and into the heart of the Father who forgives sin. Once we have experienced God's mercy and forgiveness, we will find the energy to cancel others' debts. A taste of His mercy enables us to offer others a taste of it. And we will not stop with offering forgiveness; following God example, we will pursue the one who hurt us for the purpose of reconciliation. We see in action Jesus' cry from the cross: "Father forgive them." When the Lord forgave those who crucified Him, did He grant to each of them, at that moment, a place of eternal intimacy with His Father? I don't think so. I believe He was freeing them from the immediate consequences of killing Him. They deserved the kind of judgement that occurred in the OT when Israelites touched the Ark of the Covenant: instant death. Jesus forstalled their "punishment" by asking for them to be forgiven. But they would have had to respond in repentance and faith, as did the thief who was crucified beside Jesus, in order for God to grant reconciliation.What can we learn here? We must always offer reconciliation when, in the face of rebuke, the offender demonstrates repentance. But we need not extend restoration and peace to someone who has not repented.It is the passionate desire for reconciliation that enables us to offer true forgiveness. Forgiveness that is offered without the deep desire for the offender to be restored to God and to the one who was harmed is at best antiseptic and mechanical. At worst, it is pharisaical self-righteousness. Forgiveness is far far more than a business transaction: it is the sacrifice of a heatbroken father who weeps over the loss of his child and longs to see the child restored to life and love and goodness. Further, a forgiving heart does not wait passively for repentance to occur. Instead, it offers the offender a taste of mercy and strength intended to expose and destroy sin. Good food is neither bitter - strong without mercy - nor saccharine - tender without strength. An enemy faced with the surprise and shame that results from being offered good food will respond with either fury or stunned disbelief. In either case, change will occur. We offer others an understanding of the gift of God's wrath and mercy. It is both a warning (God hates sin) and an invitation (embrace God's goodness and come under the blood of protection) To offer forgiveness, we must have tenderness to show mercy and the strength to confront the enemy's arrogance. love michelle