How Forgiveness Works

Forgiveness means looking at people who really have wronged you and deciding that you’d like to set things right—but in the end, you’re not going to play God. And forgiveness means that you view the deranged people who shoot up school rooms and then turn the guns on themselves as people who are going to be standing before the judgment seat of God. They will answer to God.

D. A decision and a process

Finally, forgiveness is a decision and a process. You can release someone from obligation to you personally, even though the smoldering fires of resentment keep burning in you for some time to come.

II. How Forgiveness Works

So, how does forgiveness work? We would be terribly mistaken if we thought forgiveness was a kind of soft feeling certain soft-hearted people are capable of, and they cushion the blow that others of us with a harder edge aren’t good at.

Remember—the boldest act of forgiveness the world has ever seen was in the bloodied and beaten and torn body of Jesus Christ. To forgive is the gutsiest thing you can do in life. Forgiveness is not for the faint-hearted. Forgiveness is the mark of the true man and the true woman of God.

A. The responsibility of the person seeking forgiveness (Ps. 32:1-5)

Psalm 32 is a landmark passage about the way forgiveness works:

"Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the LORD does not count against him and in whose spirit is no deceit. When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer. Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the LORD’ — and you forgave the guilt of my sin."

First, to be forgiven is to be blessed beyond your wildest dreams, knowing that your Creator, the gracious Father above, is willing to forgive your mistakes and offenses. God is willing to not hold our sins against us. One’s record is wiped clean. No debt owed. Account settled. We’ve got to comprehend the blessing of forgiveness because if we take God’s forgiveness for granted with an attitude that says: "Well, what else is God going to do? Isn’t that His job?" then we’ll never understand or appropriate the forgiveness of God, and there is not a chance we’ll be forgiving of others.

Notice the progression of the person’s heart in this passage: "my bones wasted away... my strength was sapped." This is a person being "eaten up on the inside" as we sometimes say. Guilt will do that. And though it is hard to believe, the tortured conscience is a gift. Look at the psychopaths and charlatans in our society. Look at the terrorist, the spouse-abuser, the chat room predator, and you’ll be frightened by the image of the dead conscience and glad if your conscience is alive and vocal.