How do you forgive someone who has hurt you deeply? Sadly this is a question every human will have to answer if they hope to keep their heart healthy.
If you have close friends, relatives you love, a spouse, children, or any other significant relationship, the possibility for hurt will never leave and thus forgiveness will always be deeply needed.
Therefore, the first step in forgiving someone who has hurt you deeply is to prepare in advance before the hurt even happens.
Jesus loves the Father and people. In fact, Jesus loves the Father by loving people.
Friendships are messy. No matter how good a person seems to be, eventually they will wrong you. So what should you do when someone sins against you? First off, the Bible makes clear that how we correct, or don’t correct, depends upon whether the offender claims to be a Christian or a non-Christian.
You Should Not Correct a Non-Christian as You Would a Christian
If he or she does claim to be a Christian, the Bible lays out clear steps on how address that person (Matthew 18:15-20 for peer-to-peer relationships, 1 Timothy 5:19-20 for church authority figures). However, when it comes to unbelievers, a different approach is advised.
Early on in my marriage, I learned it is all too easy to masquerade an accusation as a question. With a harsh tone and a rushed demeanor, the question “Where are my keys?” was really the accusation, “You put my keys somewhere they don’t belong!” With a harsh tone and furrowed brow, the question “Are you mad at me?” was really the accusation, “You have no right to be mad at me!”
Obviously this was not helpful to our marriage. Things only got better when I realized “asking” a question with a negative spirit is the same thing as accusing. I knew better than to just accuse my wife of doing something wrong, but subconsciously it felt more acceptable to phrase my accusation as a question.
In reality, though, the difference between asking and accusing lies not in the phrasing but in the motivation.
Now about food sacrificed to idols: We know that “We all possess knowledge.” But knowledge puffs up while love builds up. Those who think they know something do not yet know as they ought to know. But whoever loves God is known by God.-1 Corinthians 8:1-3
Have you ever met a Christian, or someone who claims to be, where all they want to do is war about words and ideas?
There is certainly nothing inherently wrong with being a man or woman of study. I personally really enjoy studying and gaining more knowledge. God has given us our minds and surely he expects us to know as much information about him and his word as we are able to gather. However, as Paul explains in 1 Corinthians 8:1-3, knowledge alone puffs up and does not accomplish God’s ultimate desire for us, which is to love him and build others up in love.
Those who Jesus spent his time with were the very ones the Pharisees sought to avoid. It’s easy to pass judgment on the religious leaders of Jesus’ day, thinking we would never act as repulsively as them.
Jesus did heal the physically ill, but ultimately he came to heal the spiritually ill. Jesus performed miracles on the sick to symbolize how he alone is able to perform a miracle on the sinful. The mission field for all of us, if we are followers of Jesus, is not ultimately the physically sick, but the spiritually sinful.
If you were to walk into the ER doctors’ break room, you might be surprised at how calm and casual these men and women are who have just been in life and death situations. Eating food, reading the comics, laughing about something one of the nurses said, only to then step back out to treat a life-threatening gun wound. It might seem an odd thing to look into a bunker full of soldiers at war playing a game of cards before the next mission. To watch a crime scene investigator sip his coffee as he approaches a murder scene might be a bit chilling to the average citizen.
How do you deal with people who keep attacking you? How to do you handle people who week after week spew out lies about you? How do you respond when people masterfully manipulate others to think the worst of you and the best of them?
Forgive them.
Each of us has those untouchable topics in our life. Whenever they are brought up, whenever we are confronted there, or whenever that certain itch is not scratched, being “enraged” and “crying out” (Acts 19:28) is sure to follow.
We don’t want to yell at our spouse when they confront our eating habits. We don’t want to go into a rage when our kids break a window . . . again. Nobody wants to get into the car after a long day’s work to then fume in fury as we sit helplessly in traffic. Nobody wants to rage and yell, and yet we do far more often than we would like to admit. Why?
It was a hot, sticky day just last summer. It was my day off from work and I had a rare few hours to myself as my wife and kids were out with friends. So despite the sun being at its hottest point, I decided to head up to the outdoor basketball courts to get some exercise. Hoping to play a few pickup games, I was disappointed to find no one at the courts. I guess most people are too smart to play basketball at this time of day during the hottest point of the year . . . .