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Forgiveness And Forgiveness : Forgiveness

Decent Essays

Forgiveness is a topic that is relevant to every person who has ever lived. We all need forgiveness, and we all need to give forgiveness. However, before we can tackle what forgiveness is, we need to address some faulty thinking when it comes to forgiveness. There are several things that forgiveness is not. It is not having a good feeling towards the person who wronged you. If you are waiting to feel good towards the person who hurt you, you are going to wait a long time. Forgiveness is not simply a feeling. Forgiveness is also not ignoring the offense or forgetting that it ever happened. You cannot pretend something didn’t happen. Forgiveness does not mean restoring full trust to that person again or having the exact same relationship. …show more content…

God is perfect, and cannot forget anything, but forgetting is a passive human trait. Choosing not to remember is active, and that is choosing not to hold sin against another by not bringing it up again, or shaming another person with it, or using it against a person in any way. Forgiveness brings consequences. The offense committed may mean that we cannot trust that person again, and that is not wrong. It would be wrong, however, to refuse to ever trust that person by not accepting any efforts to establish trust. There can also be other serious consequences of sin, and those consequences do not make you unforgiving. “There is no promise in Scripture that God’s forgiveness will eradicate all the consequences of sin.” Forgiveness means resisting thoughts of revenge. Forgiveness means wishing the other person well and having sympathy for them. It means praying for them. Forgiveness seeks reconciliation and always being willing to serve them (Exodus 23:4).
Choosing not to forgive can have serious consequences. Bitterness begins to rule the life of an unforgiving person. He finds himself filled with anger and mistrust of other people. He only speaks to those who sympathize with his hurt and do not challenge him. The hurt he has experienced becomes the center of his life and his motivation for everything he does. The incident controls him. “Facts are skewed, information is twisted, and sometimes reality is ignored in order to justify

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