Forgiveness is a Choice

Scripture References — Colossians 3:13 • Ephesians 4:31–32

“...forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do.”

“Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.”                                                                 

Introduction — When The Heart Says, “But You Don't Know What They Did”

There are some commands in Scripture that are much easier to preach than they are to practice.

Forgiveness is one of them.

It is easy to talk about forgiveness when the offense is small. It is much harder when somebody betrayed you, abandoned you, lied about you, abused you, stole from you, destroyed your reputation, walked out on your family, or left wounds that you still carry years later.

There are people reading these words who can remember exactly what happened.

You remember the room.

You remember the conversation.

You remember the betrayal.

You remember what was taken from you.

And perhaps most painfully, you remember that the person who hurt you may never have adequately acknowledged what he or she did.

That is where forgiveness becomes extraordinarily difficult.

Something inside us cries: “But that isn't fair.” And in one sense, that is absolutely correct.

Forgiveness is not fair.

Grace has never been fair.

If God dealt with every one of us according to strict justice for every sin we have committed, none of us could stand before Him. The Christian lives every day because God has given us something we could never earn and never deserve: mercy through Jesus Christ.

That is why Paul gives us the standard:

“Even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do.”

Notice carefully what Paul does not say.

He does not say, Forgive when you feel like forgiving.

He does not say, Forgive when the offender apologizes.

He does not say, Forgive when enough time has passed.

He does not say, Forgive when the other person deserves it.

He points us instead to Christ.

The foundation of Christian forgiveness is not the worthiness of the offender. It is the mercy we ourselves have received.

But we must immediately clear away several dangerous misunderstandings.

• Forgiveness does not mean that what happened was acceptable.

• Forgiveness does not transform evil into good.

• Forgiveness does not require you to pretend that you were never wounded.

• Forgiveness does not necessarily erase earthly consequences.

• Forgiveness does not mean that trust must immediately be restored.

• And forgiveness does not always mean that a relationship can or should return to what it once was.

  
  

Scripture commands us to forgive. Scripture also commands wisdom, truth, repentance, justice, and discernment. Reconciliation normally involves more than one person's decision because restoration of a relationship requires truth, repentance, and rebuilding trust.

Forgiveness can be granted by one person. Reconciliation requires the participation of both.

You can forgive someone and still establish necessary boundaries.

You can forgive someone and refuse to participate in destructive behavior.

You can forgive someone and recognize that trust must be rebuilt over time.

And sometimes you can forgive someone whom you may never safely have a close relationship with again.

That distinction matters.

But there is another distinction we desperately need:

Forgiveness is not primarily an emotion.

Forgiveness is a choice .

Feelings may eventually follow obedience, but obedience cannot always wait for feelings.

There may be mornings when you sincerely believe you have forgiven someone, only for a memory, letter, conversation, anniversary, or unexpected encounter to make the pain feel fresh again.

That does not necessarily mean your earlier forgiveness was false.

It may simply mean that the decision to forgive happened before the wound completely healed.

The offense happened in a moment.

Its consequences may last years.

That is why forgiveness can be both a decisive act and an ongoing application of that decision.

You decide before God:

“I surrender my personal claim to vengeance. I will not spend my life trying to make this person pay. I place this offense into Your hands. Judge rightly. Heal me. Keep bitterness from owning my heart.”

And then tomorrow, if the wound screams again, you bring it back to God again.

Not because Christ failed.

Not because your first prayer was meaningless.

But because deep wounds sometimes heal slowly.

The question is not whether you were hurt.

The question is:

Who will control your heart now—the person who wounded you, or the Christ who forgave you?

Main Point #1  — Forgiveness Begins With Remembering How Much You Have Been Forgiven

Paul gives us one of Scripture's most demanding measurements:

“Even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do.”

Before Christianity asks us to look horizontally at the person who hurt us, it forces us to look vertically at the God against whom we have sinned.

This changes everything.

We naturally compare ourselves with our offender.

“I would never have done what he did.”

“She hurt me far worse than I ever hurt her.”

“They don't deserve forgiveness.”

Perhaps they don't.

But neither did we.

The gospel begins with the devastating truth that we are sinners before a holy God. We have broken His law, rejected His authority, dishonored His name, and accumulated a debt we could never repay.

Yet God did not wait until we became worthy.

Christ went to the cross.

Our forgiveness cost Him dearly.

The nails were real.

The blood was real.

The judgment was real.

The cross reminds us that God does not forgive by pretending sin doesn't matter. God forgives because the price of sin was borne by Christ.

That means Christian forgiveness is never saying:

“What you did was nothing.”

Sometimes what happened was terrible.

Forgiveness says something entirely different:

“What you did was real, it was wrong, and it wounded me deeply—but because I have received mercy from Christ, I refuse to make vengeance the governing purpose of my life.”

Jesus illustrated this powerfully in Matthew 18 through the servant who had been forgiven an enormous debt but refused mercy to someone who owed him far less.

Christ's point was unmistakable.

People who understand how much they have been forgiven should become forgiving people.

The cross leaves no room for self-righteous bitterness.

Whenever forgiveness seems impossible, go back to Calvary.

Remember your own debt.

Remember your own sins.

Remember the mercy that found you.

Remember the Savior who did not give you what you deserved.

The forgiven become forgivers.

Not because the offender deserves grace—

but because we have received grace ourselves. 

Main Point #2 — Forgiveness Is A Decision Before It Becomes A Feeling

One of the greatest obstacles to forgiveness is the belief that we must FEEL forgiving before we can forgive.

But if obedience depended upon emotion, much of the Christian life would collapse.

We pray when we don't feel like praying.

We worship when our hearts are heavy.

We obey when temptation pulls the other direction.

We trust God when circumstances frighten us.

And sometimes we forgive while every emotion inside us is screaming:

“I don't want to.”

Biblical forgiveness begins with the will surrendered to God.

Sometimes the most honest prayer imaginable is:

“Lord, I don't feel capable of forgiving this person. Part of me doesn't even want to forgive. But I want to obey You. Give me the willingness to do what I cannot presently do in my own strength.”

There is no hypocrisy in admitting that struggle.

There is hypocrisy in pretending bitterness is obedience.

Forgiveness means surrendering our personal right to retaliation.

Romans 12:19 says:

“Beloved, do not avenge yourselves...for it is written, ‘Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,’ says the Lord.”

Notice that God never says evil doesn't matter. He says vengeance belongs to Him.

Forgiveness therefore is not releasing the offender from God's authority - It's releasing the offender into God's authority.

You are saying:

“Lord, You know what happened. You know what it cost me. You know every detail I cannot explain to anyone else. I surrender this case to You.”

That is an act of faith.

We forgive because we believe God sees.

We forgive because we believe God knows.

We forgive because we believe God judges righteously.

We forgive because we believe that carrying vengeance ourselves is a burden God never intended us to bear.

Your emotions may take longer to catch up.

But obedience can begin today.

You may not be able to choose what happened to you, but by God's grace you can choose what happens inside you because of it. 

Main Point #3 — Forgiveness Does Not Mean Excusing Evil Or Automatically Restoring Trust

This distinction may be one of the most important truths in this entire devotional.

Some Christians remain trapped in bitterness because they mistakenly believe forgiving means saying:

“What happened was okay.”

It does not.

If something was sinful before forgiveness, it remains sinful afterward.

If someone lied, it was wrong.

If someone abused another person, it was evil.

If someone betrayed a marriage, violated trust, stole, manipulated, assaulted, slandered, or deliberately inflicted harm, forgiveness does not rewrite history and call darkness light.

Forgiveness deals with vengeance. It does not eliminate truth.

Neither is forgiveness identical to trust.

Forgiveness can be given; trust must be earned.  Please let that sink in.

(Detour...) A Little Personal Reflection...

As I have worked my way through this devotional, I have found myself repeatedly coming back to a sobering thought: it is relatively easy to TALK about forgiveness when we have never been asked to forgive the seemingly unforgivable.

Many of us have been hurt. We have been disappointed, betrayed, lied to, abandoned, mistreated, falsely accused, or wounded by people we trusted. Those things are real, and I would never minimize them.

But there are other human beings who have experienced evil at an entirely different level.

After all these years in prison ministry, I have been exposed to virtually every manner of heinous and despicable sin imaginable. I learned long ago something the Bible has taught from the beginning: when sinful man gives himself over to evil, there seems to be almost no depth to which the human heart is incapable of descending.

I have heard stories that I wish I had never heard.

I have learned details about crimes that I wish I could forget.

And I have seen enough of fallen humanity to know that there are things human beings do to one another that are almost beyond our ability to comprehend.

Yet as I have written about forgiveness being a choice, my thoughts have not primarily gone to the perpetrators.

My thoughts have gone to the victims.

And especially to the children.

I think about little boys and little girls whose innocence was violently stolen from them before they were old enough even to understand what was happening. Children who were sexually abused, assaulted, raped, exploited, and repeatedly violated by the very adults who should have protected them.

Some endured it not once, but repeatedly.

Some endured it for years.

And then, somehow, they were expected to grow up.

They were expected to go to school, make friends, become teenagers, enter adulthood, form relationships, marry, raise children, hold jobs, and somehow function in a world that continued moving forward while something terrible remained buried within them.

That is where I believe those of us who have never experienced anything remotely comparable need to speak about forgiveness with enormous humility.

It can become far too easy for Christians to stand at a safe distance from another person's devastation and say:

“You simply need to forgive.”

“Jesus forgave you, so you need to forgive them.”

Now, the theology behind those words may be true. Christ absolutely commands His people to forgive. Nothing I am writing here changes that biblical truth.

But there are moments when a true statement can be spoken far too casually to a terribly wounded person.

Before telling someone to forgive, perhaps we should first sit beside them long enough to understand something of what we are asking them to place into the hands of God.

There is a dear relative whom I have known for more than fifty years. He is approximately my age, and I have always known him as a gentle soul. For most of our adult lives, however, I had no idea about the darkness he had carried out of childhood.

Only many years later did I learn that when he was just a little boy—somewhere around five to ten years old—he endured horrific sexual abuse at the hands of relatives. The abuse was prolonged and devastating. The very people who should have protected a vulnerable child became the source of wounds that no child should ever be forced to carry.

Perhaps one of the most difficult parts for me to comprehend is that the men responsible apparently were never held accountable.

No courtroom judgment.

No prison sentence.

No earthly punishment remotely proportionate to what had been done to that little boy.

They simply continued living their lives.

And I have recently learned that one or more of those responsible may possibly still be alive.

I cannot adequately describe what that does to me when I think about it.

But then I have to remind myself of something extremely important:

This is not primarily about what it does to me.

I was not that little boy.

I did not experience those nights.

I did not carry those memories into adolescence.

I did not have to somehow learn how to become a man while carrying wounds inflicted upon me before I was even capable of understanding what had happened.

I did not have to enter marriage carrying those memories.

I did not have to become a father while living with the aftermath.

I did not have to spend decades trying to understand how people who were supposed to be family could do something so unspeakably evil and then apparently continue with their lives.

He did.

And that realization has caused me to approach the subject of forgiveness differently.

There are times when Christians need fewer clichés and considerably more compassion.

Yes, forgiveness is commanded.

Yes, bitterness is spiritually destructive.

Yes, Christ calls His people to forgive as they themselves have been forgiven.

But when the wound is this deep, forgiveness may represent one of the greatest acts of faith that a wounded Christian will ever exercise.

Because forgiveness in such a situation does not mean saying:

“It wasn't that bad.”

It WAS.

It does not mean:

“What they did doesn't matter anymore.”

It matters enormously.

It does not mean:

“They deserve my forgiveness.”

Forgiveness, by definition, is never based upon deserving it.

It certainly does not mean restoring trust, removing necessary boundaries, denying justice, or placing oneself again within reach of someone capable of inflicting further harm.

Rather, at its deepest level, forgiveness may simply begin with a trembling believer coming before Almighty God and saying:

“Lord, what was done to me was evil. I cannot undo it. I cannot recover the childhood that was stolen from me. I cannot make these people understand what they did to me. I cannot make them repent. I cannot make earthly justice happen. And I cannot continue carrying the responsibility of settling this account myself. So I place them into Your hands.”

That is not weakness.

That is extraordinary FAITH.

It is saying, “God, You saw what nobody else saw.”

“You were there when nobody came to rescue me.”

“You know every detail.”

“You know every tear.”

“You know what was taken from me.”

“You know what it cost me for the next fifty or sixty years.”

“And because You are a perfectly righteous Judge, I surrender judgment into Your hands.”

That is why Romans 12:19 becomes so important:

“Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord.

God never asks the victim to declare evil good.

He asks the victim to surrender ultimate vengeance to Him.

And there is something else I want to say, particularly to anyone reading this who carries wounds from childhood abuse.

If memories still hurt, that does not necessarily mean you have failed to forgive.

Forgiveness and healing are related, but they are not identical.

You can make a genuine decision to forgive and still carry scars.

You can forgive and still grieve.

You can forgive and still experience painful memories.

You can forgive and still need wise boundaries.

You can forgive and still believe that what happened should have had serious consequences.

A scar does not prove that forgiveness failed.

A scar proves that there was once a wound.

And some wounds are very DEEP.

As I think about this dear man whom I have loved for more than fifty years, my prayer is not that he somehow learns to pretend that none of it happened. I would never ask that of him.

My prayer is that through the blood of Jesus Christ and the supernatural grace of God, the sins committed against him will no longer be permitted to own what remains of his life.

Perhaps forgiveness at this level ultimately comes down to opening one's hands before God and saying:

“Father, I cannot carry this anymore. I cannot change what happened. I cannot make them pay enough to restore what was taken from me. I cannot rewrite my childhood. But I believe You saw it. I believe You know it. I believe You are righteous. And I believe there will never be a single act of evil in this universe that escapes Your perfect judgment. Therefore, I place this into Your hands.”

There is Calvary in that kind of forgiveness.

Because the Christian does not forgive by pretending that sin is insignificant.

Look at the cross and you will discover just how seriously God takes sin.

Our Savior was betrayed.

He was falsely accused.

He was humiliated.

He was beaten.

He was mocked.

He was stripped.

He was tortured.

And ultimately He was nailed to a cross.

Jesus does not look upon a wounded person from some distant place incapable of understanding human suffering. Isaiah called Him “a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.”

Therefore, when someone carrying unimaginable wounds comes before Christ, he is not coming before a Savior unfamiliar with suffering.

He is coming before the Man of Sorrows.

And perhaps this is where I have finally landed as I have wrestled with this deeply personal part of the devotional:

The greater the wound, the more clearly forgiveness reveals itself not as human strength, but as supernatural grace.

There are offenses that human determination alone cannot adequately overcome.

There are memories we cannot simply erase.

There are debts nobody on earth can repay.

And there are injustices for which no earthly sentence could ever restore what was stolen.

Those are the places where forgiveness becomes an act of profound faith.

“Lord, I give You the case.”

“I give You the offender.”

“I give You the judgment.”

“I give You the memories.”

“I give You the years that were stolen.”

“And now, Lord, please heal what only You can heal.”

That, perhaps more than anything else, is what I mean when I say:

Forgiveness Is A Choice.

Not an easy choice.

Not a painless choice.

Not a choice that calls evil good.

Not necessarily a choice that immediately removes every painful memory.

But a choice to remove the case from our own courtroom and place it before the throne of the only Judge who knows every fact, every wound, every tear, every consequence, and every secret thing.

And then, sometimes with tears still running down our faces, we open our hands and say:

“Lord, it is Yours now.” 

A person may be forgiven immediately while the rebuilding of trust takes months or years. Depending upon the circumstances, previous closeness may never be wise or possible.

Likewise, reconciliation is related to forgiveness but is not identical to it.

Romans 12:18 carefully says:

“If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men.”

Notice those words:

“If it is possible.”

Reconciliation requires participation from both sides. Genuine restoration ordinarily involves honesty, repentance, changed behavior, and the rebuilding of trust.

Therefore, you can forgive someone without placing yourself back into a destructive situation.

Forgiveness does not require enabling continued abuse.

There may be consequences.

There may need to be distance.

There may need to be boundaries.

There may even be situations where civil authorities must become involved.

None of those things necessarily contradict forgiveness.

Jesus Himself could love perfectly while refusing to entrust Himself indiscriminately to others.

Forgiveness does not require foolishness.

It requires surrendering hatred and personal vengeance while walking in truth.

You can say:

“I forgive you. I do not hate you. I will not seek revenge against you. I sincerely desire God's work in your life. But what happened was wrong, and wisdom requires that things cannot simply return to the way they were.”

That is not bitterness.

That can be forgiveness governed by wisdom. 

Main Point Four — Forgiveness Opens The Prison Door Of Bitterness

There is something tragically ironic about unforgiveness.

We think refusing to forgive makes the offender pay.

Often, WE are the ones paying.

The offender may be hundreds of miles away.

He may be sleeping peacefully.

She may have moved on with life.

The person may even be dead.

Yet WE continue replaying the offense.

WE conduct imaginary conversations.

WE rehearse what we should have said.

WE relive the betrayal.

WE prosecute the case again and again inside our minds.

And without realizing it, the person who hurt us years ago is still CONTROLLING part of our life.

Hebrews 12:15 warns about a “root of bitterness” springing up and causing trouble.

Roots grow underground before anything appears above the surface.

Bitterness works similarly.

It begins quietly.

Then it spreads.

It affects our thoughts.

Our words.

Our relationships.

Our worship.

Our ability to trust.

Eventually, one person's sin against us begins affecting people who had nothing to do with the original wound.

That is why forgiveness is not merely something God commands from us.

It is also something God mercifully commands for us.

Forgiveness cuts the chain.

It says:

“What happened to me will NOT become the defining story of the rest of my life.”

This does not mean memories instantly disappear.

A scar is evidence that a wound once existed.

Sometimes a scar still aches.

But a scar is also evidence that the wound is no longer bleeding as it once did.

When memories return, we can repeatedly place them before Christ:

“Lord, I already surrendered this person to You. I surrender this pain again. Keep bitterness from taking root. Continue healing what was damaged.”

Do this as often as necessary.

Eventually you may discover something remarkable.

You remember what happened—

but remembering no longer controls you.

The event remains part of your history—

but it no longer owns your heart.

Forgiveness does not change yesterday. By God's grace, it can change what yesterday is allowed to do to tomorrow.

Prison Application — Don't Serve A SECOND Sentence

My brothers and sisters behind prison walls, there is a particular reason this subject matters to you.

Some of you are serving one sentence imposed by a court while simultaneously serving another sentence imposed by bitterness.

The state controls where you sleep.

But bitterness can control what happens inside your heart.

Maybe someone testified against you.

Maybe somebody you trusted cooperated with prosecutors.

Maybe a friend abandoned you.

Maybe your spouse left.

Maybe relatives stopped answering your letters.

Maybe your children want nothing to do with you.

Maybe another prisoner assaulted you.

Maybe someone stole from you.

Maybe you were abused long before you ever committed the crime that brought you to prison.

Or perhaps the person you have never forgiven is yourself.

Whatever happened, hear this clearly:

You do not need an apology from another human being before you can begin obeying God.

If your freedom depends upon your offender finally saying, “I'm sorry,” then you have handed that person another key to your prison cell.

They may never apologize.

They may never admit what they did.

They may never understand what their actions cost you.

But your obedience to Christ does not have to wait upon their repentance.

Some of you have carried hatred for ten, twenty, thirty, even forty years.

Think about that.

The original offense may have lasted minutes, yet bitterness has been permitted to occupy decades.

Don't give it another day.

Perhaps you cannot walk out of the physical prison today.

But there are prisons of the heart whose doors can open right now.

Bring the name before God.

Bring the offense.

Bring the anger.

Bring the memories.

Bring the tears.

And tell Him:

“Father, I cannot change what happened. I cannot make this person repent. I cannot rewrite yesterday. But because You have forgiven me through Christ, I choose to release my claim to personal vengeance. I put this person into Your hands.”

You may have to pray it again tomorrow.

That's all right.

Keep surrendering it.

Keep refusing bitterness.

Keep choosing obedience.

And remember:

A prison may hold your body, but through Christ bitterness does not have to hold your heart.

Final Thought — Open Your Hand

Picture one hand tightly clenched into a fist.

Inside that fist is the offense.

The betrayal.

The abandonment.

The abuse.

The lie.

The humiliation.

The years you lost.

The apology you never received.

Every finger wrapped around that offense represents another reason you believe you cannot let it go.

“It wasn't fair.”

“They haven't apologized.”

“They don't deserve forgiveness.”

“They need to pay.”

“Nobody understands what this cost me.”

Now imagine standing before Jesus Christ with that clenched fist.

Look at His hands.

They bear the marks of Calvary.

The hands before you are hands that were pierced for your sins.

And Christ says:

“Even as I forgave you...”

One finger opens.

Then another.

Then another.

Until finally your hand is open before God.

You are not saying the offense was acceptable.

You are not pretending it never happened.

You are not promising immediate trust.

You are not necessarily restoring the relationship.

You are simply saying:

“Jesus, I cannot carry this anymore. I give this person and this offense to You.”

Perhaps the wound is so deep that even wanting to forgive seems impossible.

Then begin smaller.

Pray:

“Lord, make me willing to become willing.”

God can work with a surrendered heart.

And never forget the greatest example of forgiveness the world has ever witnessed.

Jesus Christ hung upon a cross, surrounded by mockery, rejection, cruelty, and injustice, and prayed:

“Father, forgive them...”

The cross tells us that forgiveness is costly.

The cross tells us that sin is serious.

The cross tells us that grace is greater.

And the cross tells every wounded Christian:

You do not have to remain chained forever to what somebody else did to you.

Forgiveness is not pretending.

Forgiveness is not forgetting.

Forgiveness is not weakness.

Forgiveness is not necessarily reconciliation.

Forgiveness is surrender.

Forgiveness is obedience.

Forgiveness is faith.

And sometimes forgiveness is a decision we must reaffirm until the heart finally catches up with the will.

You may never receive the apology you deserve.

You may never hear the words, “I was wrong.”

But you do not need another person's apology in order to obey Christ.

Open your hand.

Give the offense to God.

Leave judgment with Him.

And walk forward in the FREEDOM Christ purchased for you.

Forgiveness is a choice.

Choose obedience. Choose mercy. Choose freedom.

Reflection Questions

1. Is there someone whose offense I continue to replay in my mind even though it happened long ago?

2. Have I mistakenly believed that forgiving someone means saying that what they did was acceptable?

3. Am I waiting for an apology before I am willing to obey God's command to forgive?

4. Do I understand the difference between forgiveness, trust, and reconciliation?

5. How does remembering how completely Christ has forgiven me change the way I view those who have sinned against me?

6. Has bitterness toward one person begun affecting my relationship with God or with people who had nothing to do with the original offense?

7. What person, memory, or offense do I need to place into the hands of God today and say, “Lord, I release my personal claim to vengeance”?

Closing Prayer

Heavenly Father,

You know every wound I carry and every wrong that has been done against me. Nothing is hidden from You. Lord, I confess that there are times when forgiveness seems beyond my strength. Remind me of the mercy You have shown me through Jesus Christ.

Give me grace to forgive as I have been forgiven. Help me surrender my desire for revenge and place every offender into Your righteous hands. Protect my heart from bitterness, anger, and hatred. Give me wisdom where boundaries are necessary, patience where healing takes time, and humility to remember how desperately I need Your grace myself.

Lord Jesus, when painful memories return, help me choose forgiveness again. Heal what has been wounded without allowing the wound to define me. May my life demonstrate the transforming power of Your mercy.

I cannot change yesterday, but by Your grace I refuse to let yesterday control tomorrow.

In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

From: Fight the Good Fight of Faith / Life Journal: by Gregg Harris