Part 8 | How Forgiveness is Made to Happen
Introduction
There are three sides to the Forgiveness Process: there is the side of the offended; the side of the offender; and God’s side who sides with the offended, the offender, and the entire Forgiveness Process itself. God has a vested interest in all involved, whether they recognize Him in it or not. He gave His Son to provide the forgiveness we all need, and whatever the offense that is involved in this process, He wants us reconciled, forgiven, restored, and fully alive with the grandeur of God.
Of the three sides of forgiveness, none is more important than His. His side is binding on the offended and the offender, regardless of the offense. He is the one who moves us through the Process by the Example of His own Son. This means that He partners with us as the offended and as the offender. When we are willing to triangulate with Him, then and only then does the Process work as He intends it to. That means we are faced with a decision to make. That is also why we need to allow Him to make that decision on our behalf.
Forgiveness is a Decision
Love is a decision, and so is forgiveness. It happens when we decide to allow it to happen. It does not take place apart from the exercising of our will. And when we become willing to make that decision, it allows God to take over and walk us through the process to His glory and to our own personal joy. As Matthew 18 points out, it is a decision made out of the heart. As the offended, I decide to forgive and enter into the Forgiveness Process in order to forgive. Love leaves us no other choice. Love forgives because that is the nature of love.
If it is not from the heart to the heart, then it is not really forgiveness at all. It means I have chosen not to forgive and thus my heart is not going to be in it. But I cannot hide behind the notion “I can’t forgive.” The truth is I choose not to forgive, therefore it cannot be realized for my heart is not in it. When Jesus states in Matthew 18 we are to “forgive from the heart, “ there is no other basis for forgiving. True forgiveness is always a heart-matter.
It is a shared decision. We do not make that decision on our own: God is a part of it. He is the One who works with us to realize what needs to happen and why, and He is the One who enables us to make it. It is not natural to forgive; it is supernatural. It is God-enabled. It is God-inspired. 1 John 4 points out that when we forgive we experience God in the process. “Lord, I know you want me to forgive so we both can be free to live as unto you, but it requires more than I have within myself. Empower me to do what glorifies You. Strengthen me with Your forgiveness and grace so I can extend the same to another in Your Name.
The one asking for forgiveness knows it is undeserved just as is God’s forgiveness for all of us. So he or she is asking for something undeserved but it is also needed if reconciliation is to take place. When forgiveness is extended, it has to be received as unmerited, undeserved, and a gift freely given based in grace and mercy alone. The one extending the forgiveness does so knowing their own need before God and knowing how God operates in extending the undeserved to the undeserving. In forgiveness everyone wins and none loses When forgiveness is withheld, no one wins, God included.
Both participants meet as equals and meet to create true reconciliation. In God’s sight the ground at the foot of the Cross is level. We both stand there in need of forgiveness. We both stand on common ground. Neither has power over the other. The power belongs to God alone, and He extends it to both equally and holds each equally responsible for and to the other. One has no right to expect forgiveness from the other; the other has no right to withhold forgiveness from the other. The withholding of forgiveness is a greater offense than what the offender did in the first place. So now what is the greater sin in God’s eyes?
It is a divine decision because what is done at the human level reaches the divine level as well. God is in it, and has been from the beginning, leading all the way. And what happens at the human level has its beginnings at the divine level to begin with. It is the divine level that guarantees the outcome at the human level. This is why God gets the thanks for the entire process and outcome when forgiveness is realized.
Both the offender and the offended are drawn together by the Spirit of God mediating God’s grace to both. True contrition and repentance are born of the Spirit of God. True forgiveness is also born of the Spirit of God. God is also in the outcome when reconciliation and restoration and new levels of relating are realized and enjoyed.
Forgiveness Is a Life-Giving Decision
It is a life-giving, God-sharing decision. The one knowing they need forgiveness is stuck in a situation that breeds death and decay, never life. None of us can stand alienation. There is no worse feeling than to be alienated when everything within us yearns for reconciliation and oneness. It worsens with each passing day. The feeling of hopelessness increases with each passing moment. When we encounter the one we have offended there is a wall between us that seems impossible to breach. Like Adam and Eve in the Garden we want to hide because of our sense of personal shame and loss. How sorry we are for the broken relationship. How we wish what was done could be undone, but there it stares us in the face. And the sight of the pain we have created and caused is like a knife in our heart. What we need is for forgiveness but who has the right to ask? Look what we have done to ourselves and to the other.
But then something divine and unnatural happens. The offended life-gifts the offender with the unmerited gift of forgiveness. The offended, knowing the depths of the grace of God needed within one’s own life, extends that same grace to the offender and together they enter the Forgiveness Process ordained by God Himself. The offended chooses to bless the offender by life-gifting him or her with the gift God has extended to them in His grace. They choose to forgive. Whatever it means for them to do so, they do it out of grace and love. They life-gift the offender; they love-gift that person in response to their own God-life within them. They meet as equals at the foot of the Cross and together they embrace as one in Him seeking to become one with each other. Together they are committing to God and the process He has ordained and it will soon result in a restored oneness between them, and between them and God. They are now meeting God afresh in and with each other.
Forgiveness is a gift. You give it in response to a real need in the life of the offender as well as in the life of the offended. True, it is undeserved, unearned, and unmerited. That’s why it has to be a gift. The offended is life-gifting the offender; the offended is life-gifting him- or herself. It is a heart-gift for the freeing of the other into a new level of relating as well as to one’s self. Since our deepest need is to be loving, and thus forgiving, we are realizing that potential and in reality this is also our personal gift to the Lord of our life.
How That Decision is Made
The initiator is usually the one who has been offended but that is not always the case. The first to sense the wooing of the Holy Spirit is the one to act first. The offender decides to take the risk and approach the offended, seeking to initiate the Forgiveness Process. The offended can also take the risk of approaching the offender, hoping they will find an openness to initiate the Forgiveness Process. This can take time, but, like the old Chinese proverb, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” No journey takes place without the initial step being taken, and the importance is not who acted first, but the fact that the journey has now begun. Partnership is formed with God in the lead. Here is a work of grace now in progress, with a predetermined result in mind and heart. Both want balance and harmony restored. Both want what God wants for them to experience.
The journey begins with “I statements.” “I want you to know how badly it makes me feel that things are not right between us and I want you to know I am willing to work at it with you.” Of course the other can reject the overture, but you have to put it out there for it to be dealt with. The risk you are taking can be the first step toward reconciliation and restoration. Hopefully the partnership is formed with God in the lead. Now it can be guided to a new level of relating never achieved before.
Behind all is the Holy Spirit. Drawing both to one another as well as to God is the work of the Spirit. God is at work in the entire process. He is in the forgiveness business. In Part 9 we will look at what hinders the process and what roadblocks can be encountered, but at this point the first step is being taken, and that opens the door to possibilities we cannot imagine just now. But our hearts are in it; we want change, and we are going to work together in achieving it.
The Example is the Forgiveness Process of Jesus Himself. The question facing us is not “What would Jesus Do?” but rather “What are we willing to allow Jesus to do in and through us?” We are making the decision to open ourselves up to Him and each other so God can work out what He has for us, and we are committed to working at it together to that end. It is not an easy decision to make. There is much soul-searching and learning ahead for us both. But learn we must, for there is more at stake here than either of us could ever realize. We can’t live with alienation, and neither can God. That’s why we are willing to follow Jesus’ Example.
All in all it is a work of God and that means both offender and offended have much to learn about grace and love and forgiveness. This will lead to experiential knowledge. The Holy Spirit will hold God’s mirror up for us both, as well as give us the insights we need in coming to understand each other. In a real sense, neither of us will ever be the same again, nor will be our relating to one another and to others. This is God’s teaching moment. We will not come up empty. We will experience God in the process as well as discover so much more about our own true selves.
The Steps to Be Taken
Behind the scenes preparations are being created by the Spirit of God working in the lives of the offended and the offender. He is helping both see the other with new eyes and forming perceptions that are better aligned with reality. Hurts tend to create faulty perceptions and guilt does the same for the offender. Both need the mind of Christ to see what God knows is present with each.
Our self-perceptions are also going through needed changes leading each more and more into the discernment of the Spirit of God. This allows for the guidance of the Holy Spirit to take over more and as a result truth surfaces on both sides of the equation. Compassion begins to emerge; understanding begins to take shape. Hope for what can be is also taking shape as the process moves through its stages.
All this is building a safe and workable environment for grace to be at work. Change is in the making. Both can envision meeting together on level ground at the foot of His Cross where both are sinners, both are forgiven, and both have a real need for each other. This leads to what is best for both parties and how we can create it. There is an openness of acceptance and desire for mutual gain. Both now have areas each can work on if the process is to reach completion.
The invitation has been shared that can lead to working together as equals. A positive response has been shared bringing both together on common ground. There is a mutual desire to work on this together. It can only work when both are working at it together. Now we are ready to make the necessary steps to achieve what the Process promises. We are now ready to begin. Our mutual prayer is that the Spirit will be in the lead, that He will draw both of us into the fulfilling of God’s will for us, and that He will also lead us to spend as much time as needed for a meaningful completion to each of the steps involved.
- Contrition: Pain has been inflicted. An offense has taken place. A wound has been inflicted. On the part of the offender, this calls for contrition. “I am sincerely sorry for what I did and for all that offense cost you.” Contrition exposes the heart of the offender to the offended and shares with the offended one’s ownership of the offense and expresses a genuine sorrow for all this has brought to the offended. As Matthew 18 points out, forgiveness must be extended as an extension of the heart of the offended and the contrition is an extending of the heart of the offender to the offended. Not only is contrition a genuine sorrow, it is also a Godly-sorrow. “I am sick at heart over what I have done to you.”A colleague of mine was asked by his young daughter, “Daddy, when does God forgive?” He thought about it and wanting to put it into terms she would understand, he said, “Honey, I guess it’s when God hears the sss of sorry.” In reality, it is when the heart issues it’s “sorry,” and that needs to be before it is shared with the offended. To come in any other frame of mind is to negate the process. Genuine sorrow is measurable. It has a ring of truth to it. The offended hears and sees its genuineness.Asking to be forgiven comes after owning the offense. Owning the offense also includes the offended’s perception of the offense. The offender needs to hear what all this means to the offended, and this is where the truth needs to be shared. What is being owned by the offender needs to be clearly understood by the offended, and the perception of the offended needs to be clearly understood by the offender. This leads to a meeting of the hearts of both.
- Confession: Contrition is the beginning of the confession. It is the contrite heart that knows how to truly confess the offense. The word “confess” means “to say the same thing.” If you betrayed a confidence you don’t confess to having made a mistake. You acknowledge I betrayed a confidence. Not only do I confess I betrayed a confidence but I must also confess what this did to the relationship, what this did to the one offended, and what my action has meant to all concerned. In other words, what is the true offense and its true cost to all involved?A good rule of thumb is to make the circle of the offense the circle of the confession. If my offense hurt the offended and his or her family or whatever, then that circle is to become the circle of the confession. State what was done, all who were hurt by it, and what the offended has had to face as a result of my betrayal. I also need to confess to my Heavenly Father what my offense has caused Him as well as to His Son and Spirit. All of this has to be from the heart. If I can describe to the offended what I know to be the full implications of the offense, then my confession is genuine. Nothing less will ever do.
- Acceptance: To accept the confession of the offended is to offer forgiveness for the offense and everything that accompanies it. I have told you I am sorry, I have made my confession, and your reaction is to extend your forgiveness by accepting my offering and now accepting me as the offender. I do not deserve forgiveness, I cannot merit it, nor is it owed me. It is pure grace on your part as the offended. But you entered the Forgiveness Process with me in the hope that forgiveness could be shared and its resultant reconciliation achieved. I need your forgiveness. I cannot be whole apart from it. Your acceptance of my contrition and confession is your acceptance of me.The basis of your forgiveness is within your own heart as well as within God’s. I have no claim on it. I need it; I want it; I hope for it; I pray for it. But it is your gift to me based on your own heart and your relationship to the One who offers forgiveness to us both. Now that you are extending it to me, I want to tell you what this means to me and what I hope and pray will become ours in building the relationship I hope we may have growing out of this exchange.Forgiveness is a relational term. It is what brings two alienated persons back together again. We were once together. I did something to violate that relationship. You ended up over there; I am over here. There is a void between us. Now I have confessed the offense and you have chosen in grace to accept my confession and to forgive what I did against you. Now we are back together again. Where it goes from here is for us to decide as we work the Forgiveness Process together. Hopefully it will be stronger and better as it progresses.
- Restitution: If I betrayed you, I can make amends by going to others and taking ownership of my offense and its cost to you. If I took from you I can make restitution. If it was something that cannot be corrected, then perhaps the only restitution possible is to acknowledge my true debt and see that it does not happen again. If restitution is possible, it needs to be part of the contract between us in seeking to reconcile.In Old Testament times, when a debt was incurred, restitution meant paying back the loss with interest. The interest was set at 20%. If I stole $100, I was to pay back $120. If I stole ten lambs and butchered them, I was to give back 12. In other words, the offended was entitled to compensation. But what of offenses that were of a spiritual or emotional nature? That could be worked out between the offended and the offender. Here the Holy Spirit needs to be the Guide. Penance is a useful and healing tool when used of the Spirit. Penance is never in payment for an offense. It is a reminder to the penitent that every offense costs the offended something. It acknowledges the penitent’s true debt to another.
- Reconciliation: Grace is at its best when it comes to reconciliation. It takes two and makes them as one. It reopens a closed door and says, “Come in!” It breaks down the wall that had been built up by the offense and invites the offended and the offender to begin again. They are now back in fellowship with each other. Not only can they talk and commune with one another, they are also in a position to embrace and to say how good it feels to be together again. How hard it was when they were estranged. But now that is behind them.Being reconciled to one another also impacts their relating to God and to others. The alienation when they were alienated ruptured their relationship with each other, but also with God and with their own True Selves. They were not living and relating as God intended. But now, being reconciled, harmony and balance are being restored.Reconciliation is a gift we give ourselves and the Body of Christ as well as to the offender. Our alienation takes away from all our relating and reconciliation restored things. Now that we are back in communion with one another, we can go on and build from here. It is God’s will for us that we be reconciled with God/others/self/and life as He intends it to be lived. Reconciliation mends the relationship; restoring the balance and harmony the Spirit wills for us.
- Restoration: In reconciliation we do not say, “Okay, now we’re even. You offended and have confessed, and I have forgiven, so now we’re even. You go your way and I’ll go mine.”Reconciliation brings us back together and now the Forgiveness Process moves us into the state of Restoration in which we commit and work together in allowing God to make it all it needs to be. Being back together is the beginning. Now the new building begins. What we need between us is more than we may have had before. The Holy Spirit wants to offense-proof the relationship as well as to share with us what we could have between us that was not present before. Why settle back into what was there before; why not allow the Spirit to lift us beyond that into something new? God is in it; what might He have in mind for us to share?Grace has a way of making any relationship stronger at the point where it broke apart in the first place. Neither of you are the persons you were when the break occurred so why not allow the Spirit to create something new and stronger? Marriage and family relationships are welded when the breaking points are restored by His grace. This allows for new growth, a new sense of purpose and fulfillment. This is how grace operates.
- Celebration: With all that has taken place and with things now restored and moving in deeper and greater ways, we need to celebrate. We need to celebrate the grace of God. The Forgiveness Process. Reconciliation and restoration. New life. Forgiveness. You name it. We need to acknowledge God’s role in all this, the work we have done in reaching this point together, and in all that can now be achieved because of forgiveness. God is to be praised.Thanking God for one another. Thanking Him for the circle of those who supported us and worked with us as our encouragers. Those who are now celebrating with us. Together we are praising God for a grace that is greater than all our sin.The Church Family needs to be included in this celebration when it is appropriate. The message which undergirds any local fellowship is that of forgiveness, reconciliation, and new life. Such a celebration is a living example of its message in action. When a relationship is restored and enhanced it encourages us all, especially those who still struggle with brokenness and alienation. We all are in need of it, are we not?
- Renewal and Continuation: A relationship has not only been saved, it is now on its way to a new level of wholeness and continuing growth. We are seeing grace at work. We are being His grace in the life of another. We are personally witnessing what God can do when allowed to have His way among us. This encouraged us to claim the full workings of His grace in our life together. See what God can do. See what God is doing.Whether we are aware of it or not, or choose to recognize it or not, when there is any level of alienation within a relationship, a family, a community, and a local fellowship, it impacts us all. It hurts us all, even though we may not be directly involved with the ones who are at its center. It ripples outward throughout the community. The more of it that is present, the more it becomes our focus, and it wears on us, even when we are not conscious of it doing so. But when alienation is absent and grace is abounding, that impacts the entire community as well. The one we need; the other we must work to minimize and eliminate. We know this is what God wills for us as His own.
- Mutuality: Paul teaches us we are “members one of another.” We are all in this together. There is a “weness” we must strive to maintain, for the benefit of the entire Body. This is why alienation as well as the Forgiveness Process has to be binding on us all. We pray for all involved, encourage all who are involved, and at the same time hold them accountable to the whole Body for how things are or are not resolved. What happens when there is alienation within a relationship, marriage, family, or community? Harmony and balance are disturbed. How long can it be endured without deeper damage being incurred? It hurts us all. It hinders us all.How are we to grow up more and more into Him when we are being hindered by alienation? Did not Christ die to make us all one? Alienation must be confronted and resolved to God’s glory.
- Shared Maturing: We don’t grow because everything is sweetness and light. We grow best when we are challenged to grow, and what challenges us most is the presence of alienation and dis-ease. It unbalances the whole and creates disharmony within the whole. To restore the whole we need to restore its parts. What results is a shared maturing; the Body is growing up into what He desires it to become and be. This is how He is glorified best.He cannot raise us up beyond where we are willing to go. Our continuing growth depends on this mutuality. He’ll do the raising up when we are willing to allow Him to do His work among us. We are also lifting one another up in the process.Forgiveness, reconciliation, and restoration are not options. They are God’s will for His own. They are gifts we cannot do without.
In Conclusion
“Never again!” That is what we exclaim when reconciliation and restoration have been realized. 1 John tells us that never ffending again is possible, if God’s is allowed His rightful place within our thinking, feeling, and acting. But, if an offense should occur, the same grace and forgiveness process is still available to all who need it. The more that is exchanged and shared between the original offender and offended, makes it that much harder to offend ever again. Remember what Peter asked of Jesus, “If my brother offends me should I forgive him seven times?” And what did Jesus reply? In essence He said, “As often as needed to maintain the relationship. The relationship is more important than any issue between you.” Do you agree with Jesus’ answer? God does! And that’s how God’s grace operates. You cannot forgive another without experiencing God in the process. No issue is ever as important as our relationship to Him.
Offender and the offended are claiming God’s forgiveness together. They believe it…it is real to them and they both testify to this reality. They have seen it with their own eyes as it has unfolded between them and in them. They have become it…by living it, practicing it, sharing it and being it. They have both come to feel it ..and to rejoice in it’s presence within and between them. Now they want to share it.
Thank God for the Forgiveness Process! Thank God for His forgiveness!
Dr. Emil J. Authelet
eauthelet@cox.net
Next Month:
WHEN THE PROCESS IS BLOCKED
EJA:07/09.
Ministering to God's Forever Family 
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