Forgiveness is a choice, not an emotion (Doug Britton)
Forgiveness - What It Is & What It Is Not (Sam Storm)
What Forgiveness Is and Is Not
1. Forgiveness is not an emotion; it is a choice.
Without forgiving someone, the Bible and life's realities make the case that you are still hooked to them, still bound by your past. In forgiveness you will let them off your hook, but know they are never off of God's. He will deal with them fairly, something we cannot do.
“Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart.” - Corrie Ten Boom
2. Forgiveness is not forgetting; it is choosing not to dwell on the offense.
It is choosing to not continue to rehearse the offense in your thoughts. It is choosing not to keep a record (or keep score). It is choosing to never use past offenses of someone you have forgiven, against them ever again. - [Love] ...keeps no record of wrongs. (1 Corinthians 13:5)
"In forgiving, people are not being asked to forget. On the contrary, it is important to remember, so that we should not let such atrocities happen again. Forgiveness does not mean condoning what has been done. It means taking what happened seriously and not minimizing it; drawing out the sting in the memory that threatens to poison our entire existence. It involves trying to understand the perpetrators and so have empathy, to try to stand in their shoes and appreciate the sort of pressures and influences than might have influenced them." - Archbishop Desmond Tutu
3. You don't forgive someone for their sake; you do it for your own sake so you can be free.
Your need to forgive isn't an issue between you and the offender; it's between you and God.
4. Forgiving someone does not mean you no longer feel the pain of their offense.
- "In most cases, the only way you can stop hurting is to stop feeling, and the only way you can stop feeling is to die emotionally. But passionless robots can neither truly love God or others. This may be the primary reason people are reluctant to forgive. They know they can’t stop feeling the sting of the sin against them and they don’t want to be insincere by saying they forgive when deep down inside they know they didn’t." - D. Sam Storms
5. After you forgive someone, you may continue to struggle with bitterness or anger.
However, your emotions often change after you decide to forgive. Although you start out choosing to forgive, you often end up feeling forgiving.
6. Forgiveness is agreeing to live with the consequences of another person's sin.
Forgiveness is costly, as you pay the price of the evil you forgive. Forgiveness or not, the reality is you are going to live with the consequences whether you want to or not. Your only choice is whether you will do so in the bitterness of unforgiveness or the freedom of forgiveness.
7. To forgive you have to decide that you will bear the burden of their offenses by not using that information against them in the future.
8. Forgiving someone who has sinned against you doesn’t mean you cease longing for justice.
- To long for justice is entirely legitimate, but to seek it for yourself is not. Let God deal with the offender in his own way at the appropriate time. He’s much better at it than you or I... The point is that forgiveness does not mean you are to ignore that a wrong was done or that you deny that a sin was committed. Forgiveness does not mean that you close your eyes to moral atrocity and pretend that it didn’t hurt or that it really doesn’t matter whether or not the offending person is called to account for his/her offense. Neither are you being asked to diminish the gravity of the offense, or to tell others, “Oh, think nothing of it; it really wasn’t that big of a deal after all.” Forgiveness simply means that you determine in your heart to let God be the avenger. He is the judge, not you." - Dr. Sam Storm
9. You must acknowledge the hurt and the hate, in order to begin the process of forgiving from the heart.
Let God bring the pain to the surface so you can deal with it.
10. Don't wait to forgive until you feel like forgiving; you will never get there.
Feelings take time to heal after the choice to forgive is made and Satan has lost its place (Ephesians 4:26-27). Freedom is what is gained when you forgive, not a feeling.
Videos on Forgiveness
Corrie Ten Boom Forgiveness Quotes
“Happiness isn’t something that depends on our surroundings… It’s something we make inside ourselves.”
“Do you know what hurts so very much? It’s love. Love is the strongest force in the world, and when it is blocked that means pain. There are two things we can do when this happens. We can kill that love so that it stops hurting. But then of course part of us dies, too. Or we can ask God to open up another route for that love to travel.”
“Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart.”
“Forgiveness is the key that unlocks the door of resentment and the handcuffs of hatred. It is a power that breaks the chains of bitterness and the shackles of selfishness.”
“And for all these people alike, the key to healing turned out to be the same. Each had a hurt he had to forgive.”
“God never measures the mind… He always put His tape measure in the HEART.”
Corrie Ten Boom Forgiveness Stories