Forgiveness Nuggets 2
Mark 12:30-31 (NIV)
30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.'[a] 31The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'[b]There is no commandment greater than these."
“True love encourages a compassionate willingness to forgive, yet retains the strength of conviction that all parties must be fully accountable for their own decisions and behavior.”
Forgiveness grounded in true love is not a soft and naïve yielding that excuses almost any kind of abuse people might direct at us. It is not a self-effacing meekness that lets people run all over us.
Respecting self requires that we discern appropriate boundaries and set limits to the amount of mistreatment we will accept from those who are thoughtless or who would be cruel.
We must be willing to forgive, but we must also know where to draw lines of accountability. In the name of love, we do not have to passively accept disloyalty from trusted friends, betrayal from our spouse, abuse from our family members, or the deceit of professional co-workers. That is not what forgiveness is. It doesn’t mean closing our eyes to those who will continue to harm us or others. True love should empower us to say “No more!” when someone’s behavior pushes past our boundaries.
Letting persons be accountable is different than demanding they be accountable. We cannot demand another person’s repentance.”
This area of forgiveness is what started me on this journey of truly learning about it. I was abused as a small child setting my life on a tail spin out of control. Forgiving someone who has already died was something new to me. We’ll talk more about that later. I grew up in an alcoholic household, so I’ve had to walk through much forgiveness. I have been on a long journey to forgive someone else in my life. I’ve bashed myself thinking that I can’t truly forgive this person because I really do not ever want them in my life again. But this was a total lie the enemy used to keep me thinking I could never forgive that person. This journey will help you to forgive those you never thought you could forgive. Forgiveness is essential if you are ever going to grow further in Christ.
Prayer:
Father, thank You for dying on the Cross so I can have eternal life and forgiveness for my sins. There are people in my life, Lord, that have done awful things to me or someone close to me and I need your help in forgiving them. Give me a heart of love, compassion, and mercy, the same as You have shown me. Help me to know my boundaries and to love my enemies. Teach me to have a heart of forgiveness. Amen!
Choosing Forgiveness
John & Paula Sandford and Norm Bowman
Copyright © 1996
Clear Stream, Inc. Publishing
Box 122128, Arlington, Texas 76012
Total Forgiveness
R.T. Kendall
Copyright © 2002
Published by Charisma House
A Strang Company
600 Rinehart Road
Lake Mary, Florida 32746
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