Forgiveness

"...and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors..."

That's how the Bible views sin and forgiveness; in terms of debt.

Yes, yes, you say. I know that. Everyone knows the Lord's prayer.

Ok, but what does it mean to forgive the men who stole your career from you, who robbed you of your ability to preach the Word to the people of God, who ruined your life for the sake of their ego?

They owe you a debt. Shall you choke your fellow servant, demanding repayment of this significant debt, despite what God has forgiven you? Will you be like the wicked servant in Matthew 18:23-35?

I owed the Lord an infinite amount of money. Bill Gates doesn't have enough to repay what I owed the Lord because of my smallest sin, because the debt is infinitely greater than that. Not to mention that the entire earth already belongs to him. There's nothing we can give him that isn't already his.

What did it mean for God to forgive my debt? It meant that HE paid for it. HE ate the cost. HE substituted his life for mine, even though I had made myself his enemy.

The wrong that has been done to me is an opportunity for me to grow to become more like God. Isn't that what you really want deep down, for your character to conform to his?

So when wicked men or women sin against us and ruin our lives, we have the opportunity to respond as Jesus did. Not by dying on the cross for them - Jesus has already done that - but by simply eating the cost, and not demanding to be repaid.

That anger that I've nourished and allowed to fester in my heart - that's just me choking my fellow servant, demanding to be repaid - even if I keep it to myself. I need to eat that cost. I need to pay the debt and not demand repayment.

Notice what forgiveness does NOT include. It does NOT include trusting that person again. I wouldn't trust those men to give me the time of day.

And without trust, you can't have a restored relationship. Relationships are built on trust. Consider a marriage. At its very heart it's a relationship based on two people trusting each other to remain true to the other, to never abandon them. If you can't trust the other person, you can't truly be in a marriage. You can never let them get close again, so the intimacy just can't be there. That's not a marriage anymore. The trust is essential to it. So it is with all relationships, just to different degrees.

So forgiveness doesn't mean you have to go back to being friends with the people who destroyed your life. It's easy to make things that much harder when we listen to foolish platitudes spouted off by people who don't really get it.

But it does mean leaving vengeance to the Lord, and letting go of your anger, knowing that the Lord's justice will ALWAYS be satisfied.