Faith to Forgive : 5 Steps to Forgiveness

Step #1: Acknowledge the offense

Jesus tells the disciples to rebuke the person who offends them and then forgive them when they repent. Some people think that because they never acknowledge the fact that something offended them means the hurt is just going to go away, but that’s not true. Acknowledge the offense. An offense may be petty to one person but serious to you. You have a right to be offended but you also have a duty to forgive. There’s no forgiveness if you live in self-denial.

Step #2: Choose to Forgive

Once you acknowledge that you’ve been hurt, decide that you won’t hold a grudge. Have the desire to forgive even though you may not be able to do it at the time. With my experience, I wanted to forgive even though I was hurt (see previous post). I acknowledged that Jesus didn’t want me to hold a grudge, so I wanted to forgive but I was too hurt to do it.

Step #3: Pray

After you acknowledge that God wants you to forgive and you get to wanting to forgive, you can now pray for God to help you release that person from your judgment. Then begin to speak against the unforgiveness in your heart. Let the enemy know that you don’t want it. You can even start to pray for the person.

I don’t mean to pray them dead either. I mean genuinely praying for them. It’s also a good measure for yourself to know if you have truly forgiven the person. One of the greatest ways we can express love as believers is through prayer. Doing this for someone who offended you is a great blessing for your life and for that person because, through your prayers, they may receive a turnaround in their own lives.

Step #4: Trust the Holy Spirit

The best part of this is the Holy Spirit is there to help us in our weakness. When we open our hearts to forgive and we begin to focus on God’s goodness towards us, we give the Lord room to help us because we are not holding on tight to something He wants to pry out of our hands. If you’re holding tight to something, He would have to force it out of your hands to get rid of it; however, when you take your hand off of it and acknowledge to Him that you want to get rid of it, He gives you the strength. God won’t force you to do what you don’t want to do but He can help you do what you WANT to do but struggle to do.

Step #5: Let God heal you

If you uproot a huge tree, there will be a big hole left where the tree was planted. Some people think that forgiveness means automatic healing and because you forgave, you won’t hurt anymore. That’s simply not true. Forgiveness releases the other person from judgment or condemnation but the wound they caused still needs to be mended to be healed and only God can do that. Sometimes we don’t know how deep an offense runs but He does, and He can heal it all like it never happened.

FORGIVENESS DOES NOT MEAN EMBRACING TOXICITY!!

I cannot say this loud enough!! Don’t let people abuse you in the name of “forgiveness”. You can forgive a person and choose to not associate with them anymore. Forgiving a person does not mean you have to keep letting them hurt you. Be blameless before God but use wisdom.

Conclusion

You eventually become whatever you focus on so the only person to focus on throughout this entire process is God. You want to forgive because He forgave you and because you love Him and don’t want to be hindered in your walk with Him. When you focus on Him and how much He loves you and how much He has forgiven you, your perspective changes from meditating on the list of the person’s faults to the list of God’s goodness.

Scripture Reference: Luke 6:37; Matthew 6:15; Luke 17:1-10; Matthew 18:21-35

#Christianity #Faith #Forgiveness