we know many of the verses:

²¹Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?”  ²²Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times. (Matthew 18:21-22)

or -

³So watch yourselves. “If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. ⁴If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, ‘I repent,’ forgive him.” (Luke 17:3-4)

or -

¹²Therefore, as God‘s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. ¹³Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. ¹⁴And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. (Colossians 3:12-14)

but are there some things we just can’t forgive?

it’s easier to put things behind us like hurt feelings, mis-communications, petty fights, a few bumps or bruises caused by others… but what happens when something affects you in a much greater capacity?

• What if you are directly or indirectly affected by marital infidelity, pornography, rape, incest, premarital sex or sexual abuse? What about murder or accidental death? How about physical or emotional abuse?
  
• What if drugs or alcohol take over your life or if you are affected by the actions of someone else who this is affecting?
• How about if you are directly or indirectly affected by dishonesty, slander, a bad breakup, divorce, a power play, getting fired for a good or no-good reason, having something stolen from you… this list goes on.

Are we really called to forgive those that do those things to us or those we care about? Is there a difference between forgiving and forgetting? Are we called to forget too? Is it even possible to forget, let alone forgive? And where do natural consequences come in for the things we do to others or have been done to us? Forgiveness doesn’t change the natural consequences does it? it doesn’t make everything ok, or say it’s no big deal what happened does it?

if you’re confused by the post… good, i am too.  here’s where i am coming from on this. currently i am on the side of asking for forgiveness from people  i have directly or indirectly hurt in the past. and i am wondering where the line is between reality and a good idea. do these people really need to forgive me? should they even? what are my expectations of it, or do i have none knowing what i deserve? what do i believe is right and what God says about forgiveness, sin and grace?

and then after running past a couple of stories this weekend of cheating (baseball player josh hamilton in particular, whom i am a big fan of), rape (a friends story) and murder (always stories of this i guess, and many other crimes) – it made me wonder where we really stand in between…

… what should we do, and we can we or believe we should do?

i know what i think i should do… i know what i think i wish others would extend to me… i know what Jesus tells us to do and what he modeled…

but can and will it be done in our lives in practice and not just theory…

can i do it when faced with a situation…

what do you think?

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• Hamilton’s wife forgives him, hopes others do as well (cbssports.com)
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6 Responses to “should Christians always forgive?”

1. LaDonna
   August 25th, 2009 @ 9:52 am

   What else can we do— He does it through us.

2. Stephanie
   August 25th, 2009 @ 10:17 am

   forgive…yes. reconcile…not necessarily.

3. Valerie
   August 25th, 2009 @ 10:20 am

   I like Stephanies reply. We are demanded to forgive, the reconciling is difficult sometimes, but just keep praying for that person and usually God works it out in the end!!

4. Jerry
   August 25th, 2009 @ 10:21 am

   Chris, you know the answer to that!

5. Diane
   August 25th, 2009 @ 10:21 am

   “To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.” Lewis B. Smedes

6. Jeremy
   September 14th, 2009 @ 10:34 pm

   Rob Bell recently gave an interesting talk on forgiveness called “It Stops Here” You can download it here http://bit.ly/18qgue or it will be on this site http://marshill.org/teaching/ for another week or two.

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