The Gift of Forgiveness

What is forgiveness?  Well in two dictionaries that I have seen here are the following definitions:

"to grant free pardon and to give up all claim on account of an offense or debt"

"to give up resentment of or claim to requital for"

Well to me those are very good accounts of forgiveness.  Forgiveness is the action for those who are victims.  Not always neccessarily the guilty.  Today i want to share a few words about what forgiveness is really about and why it is important to understand and make it a valued practice in our lives.  Then later I will share a personal testimony of my experience with Forgivness.

• 1st thing we have to remember or acknowledge is that forgiveness is one of the  hardest things we are going to have to endure in our lifetime.  No one wants to let go of that pain and hurt that someone has caused us.  We want to hold onto that and hold it above the one who hurt us' head.  We want them to feel our pain.  But we HAVE to do it.  In Colossians 3:13  it tells us:  "Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you."  How can we call ourselves Christians if we can't do something for us like Christ did for us by DYING.

• Why should we forgive?  Aside from HAVING to...who wants to live a life full of animosity, hatred, bitterness?  Not me.  Pain and wrongdoing can weigh us down.  Forgiveness gives us the chance to relieve us of that pain....to take away future pain.  It allows us to move forward in the face of adversity.  I've heard it said and personally feel this way about it.......Forgiveness is a gift not for the recipient, but for the giver.  Why is that you may ask.......well for the fact that a, you can feel less weighed down.......hence the quote "I'm glad i got that off my chest" AND  more importantly.......sometimes those who we are forgiving, don't realize, or don't want forgiveness.  Sometimes in their mind they are right and see NOTHING wrong with whatever if may be that they've done.  Some don't even realize they've done anything wrong......therefore, it is better for yourself right?  Forgivenss for you is a form of screaming at the DEVIL, "NOOOOO........you will not control me or the people around me"
• Forgiveness is even a form of Love, Mercy, Humbleness............starting to sound a lot like another lesson we have discussed right????  COMPASSION!!!  Love plays a big part in forgiveness.  Bitterness can sometimes prevent us from Loving our fellow humans  Sometimes bitterness and hate plays the game of Divide and Conquer.  I beg of you to never let it get that way.  Please learn to forgive and Humble yourself sincerely to God's love so that he may bless you for your obedience!

• Madea Goes to Jail got it right...here is a little except from the movie:

"All right, today... 
...we are gonna talk about forgiveness.
 
Why is this so important? Yes, T.T.
 
Because you have to forgive
to be forgiven.
 
Correct.
 
We must forgive others as Christ forgave us.
 
Last week we talked about the first steps to forgiveness.
 
Anybody know?
 
Acknowledging what was done.
 
That's right.
 
A lot of times we don't wanna acknowledge what we've done.
 
When you don't forgive somebody, you give them power over your life.
  They're sleeping at night and you're walking around...
 
...remembering everything that they've done.
 
You know a little bit of my testimony.
 
Sixteen years living on the street. Drug addiction, prostitution.
 
And I did it because I was hurting myself.
 
I was hurting my daddy. I was hurting my mother.
 
I was hurting every man that did anything bad to me.
 
Until one day, the Lord spoke to me.
 
And he said:
 
"Forgiveness is not for the other person. It's for you."
 
The longer you hold on to it...
 
...the longer you hold on to the pain and the past and the hurt...
 
...the longer you hold yourself back from being free.



Now I'd like to share a little of my story from my life and experience with Forgiveness.:

For many years I held onto a grudge against my father.  He abandoned us, and before I was born he tried to get my mom to do everyhing in his power to make sure I didn't show up on his radar.  I'm not quit sure if he tried to have her abort me, but he did try to get her to leave me with family. He did this so that he could make sure that they moved on in life just the two of them..........ALONE.  Well thank the Lord the she wouldn't do that.  I remember when I got to a certain age, I believe 5 years old (when I finally met him), she told me that was my father and what was up with the story.......I knew that other little boys had their mom AND dads living with them......I swore to myself and made a vow that I would not only be there for my wife and kids........but to not only be there for them......make sure that they are loved and they know it for sure!.  My mind couldn't grasp ahold of the concept that he didn't want me..........I mean who wouldn't want me.......I was AWESOME.  So for 23 years I grew up learning more and more to have animosity towards him.  I can be honest and say that I HATED him.  Sad but true.  Now when I was 23 years old we had a family emergency that called my mom down to Florida quickly......while there she ran into my dad and he STILL refused to acknowledge I existed by not asking one single question about me.  How could that be?  Well less than two weeks later she had to go back and she asked before leaving, do you want me to say something on your behalf, show him pictures, anything.  Me with 23 years of pent up hatred say to her, you can tell him whatever, show him anything she wanted but since he didn't have nothing to say to me for 23 years, then I sure enough had nothing to say to him. Well 2 years later God finally broke my heart down to "reach out to him at least one time from my end"  Well I wrote him an 18 page, front and back, letter to him explaining things and feelings I have delt with for 23 years........well while looking for his address we came across his obituary.  You talk about a broken heart......I didn't even have to the chance to yell, scream, talk, or even maybe just maybe reconcile with him. So now fast forward to the year 2012 and one little precious angel in my life telling me to just let it go and leave it be, a Sermon I heard on the radio talking about how God don't make no junk.......he chose my mother and my father who had the perfect genetic makeup to create me!  I would exist if one or the other were different.  Thank God for that, then I was also listening to a clean comedian, he was talking about how in the Bible it said Honor your father and mother......not honor them only if they were there for you, or if they treated you good. It says Honor your father and Honor your mother.  I finally was out at the park listening to this when God finally broke down this little heart of mine and said "enough is enough forgive him and move on so I can bless you with many other things in your life"I learned to forgive him because after all I'm still awesome, but I wouldn't be here today without him.  I have grown to a certain level of love for him.  I mean he did give me life.  It saddens me that I will never get to hear his voice, or have him tell me that he loves me, or know anything really about him.  And I can only hope that he was able to get to meet God before he passed away and accept Jesus Christ as his Savior before he left.