Total Forgiveness

Have you ever wondered if you have really forgiven every single person that has done you wrong? I didn’t. It did not matter to me. I never found the intrinsic value of total forgiveness or how to actually forgive someone completely. It was only until recently that God has really moulded my character and gave me the revelation about total forgiveness. I was put in such a situation that I probably had every right to just blame every single thing on this person for what has happened. But that is not how Jesus lived right? He could have just left the cross that He was carrying on the ground and sent for 1000 angels to fly him back to heaven if He wanted to or what most of us would have done anyway. I mean why should we bother sacrificing for people that is persecuting us constantly? But God is gracious and His mercy endures forever that once He has forgiven us, He will move forward and never look back. He knew all that has happened yet to Him you are as clean as a blank sheet of paper, that you are holy and blameless in His sight (Colossians 1:22), that you are white as snow (Isaiah 1:18). This means that He does not remember your sins because once you repented then to Him you are made righteous once again. You are perfect in His sight. That whatever you have done in the past, does not matter because when you are forgiven then you are forgiven! And if you keep asking him for forgiveness regarding the same sin, He doesn’t know what you are talking about!

Now Christianity is all about us having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ Himself and the stories that we read about Jesus in the bible tells us of how Jesus behaved in the circumstances that He was in. It is the way Jesus lives that God also wants us to learn from Him. He was fully human and fully God thus He faced every temptation and life’s complications as what we are facing now. (Without all the technological advancements though). That our God the father has sent Jesus as a man is for us to learn of how He truly designed us to live in this world according to His plan, that how Jesus lives shall be how we live as well. When we have a true relationship with God Himself, we will gradually be transformed by the renewal of our mind (Romans 12:2). That our life shall truly does reflect His glory by using the circumstances that we have and handle it the way our J.C. would have done it ! (J.C. =Jesus Christ for slow thinkers :p).

This is my understanding of my relationship with my God and this is the way I aim to live my life. Hence why when I was faced with this situation, I knew I had to forgive and yet it was very hard to do. This was truly a battlefield of my mind and my heart. Logically, the reality of the events did not really makes much sense for me to just let it all go as if it never happened. In my heart, I was so hurt and betrayed that it makes it even harder to yes once again let it all go?
Yes peace was not with me, joy was out of me and I was miserable than ever. I called the past to account again and again. I was never satisfied with what the other person has said or tried to do to amend things with me. I was blinded to all things that were good or positive out of this.

I was told that how would you know if you have really forgiven someone is when you would be able to bless this person. Hence that is what I did. Every single night I would pray for this person and bless them in whatever it is that they are doing. Until I actually meant it from the deepest of my heart that I truly bless them. It was hard at first coz all that is going through your head is every single bad thing that has been done to you. Yet I persevered in my faith that if God had first loved me as a sinner then I should also embraced this person the same way God had embraced me!

Familiar with that prodigal son story? (Luke 15:11-32) Wasn’t his father’s heart hurt when he asked for the inheritance? Yet when he came back home, his father actually RAN to embrace him, showered him with love by celebrating his return and thus BLESSING him with all the best things that his father had. His father accepted who his son was, loves him, accepts him with the way he is and blessed him! Notice that this all thing was done from his father’s side? The son was still the way he was, he might have came back but isn’t it just because he ran out of money and was not living the ideal life that he had in mind? Truth is the prodigal son was still the way he was =s.

The lesson I learnt from this story about the father’s forgiveness also is that the forgiving part must be done from our side. The father in this parable is blameless; he was not the one at fault. In our worldly point of view, we can say that he is the one that needs to be persuaded for forgiveness. But no instead, through all of that he stretched out his arms and ran to embrace his son. He was the one who made that step. Out of his love he was able to forgive, give back and even bless his son with even more riches. The son did not do anything that was worthy of all of these, nor did he try to make amends with his dad. He simply came back to his father’s house because his plan didn’t quite work out the way he thought it would.

Similarly I believe, God wants us to be able to embrace the people that have hurt us. He wants us to love, give and bless that person with all our hearts. He wants us to be the one who first stretch out our hands and use all of our might to run towards that person and embrace them. He wants us to be the one who makes that first step!

It doesn’t matter what place we hold in that circumstance, whether we are right or wrong but what matters to God should be what places the most important thing in our heart.

Thanks be to God that He is so gracious in my life, that all of these He revealed to me one by one. It took me a while to finally understand this whole lesson of total forgiveness, but I believe that His timing is always and always perfect. Through waiting and persevering in what I believe
God had wanted me to do in this situation, my character was being shaped. God had blessed me with this understanding, this revelation of God’s originally intended character in each one of us.

Even until really recently, He revealed that one last thing to me. One thing that I’ve already heard so many times but only became a revelation to me few days ago. It is what I have mentioned at the start of the note. It is that when Jesus forgave your sins, He moves forward with you and doesn’t look back. If you continue to ask for forgiveness about the same sin, He WOULDN’T KNOW what you are talking about. Simply because our sins has been wiped away! All these times, yes I have blessed them, yes I said that I have forgiven and I have let go. But when emotions boil over and things go awry, I would then bring back the past and get frustrated over it again and again. It’s like a never ending cycle and I didn’t get why I could not fully let go when I said I have forgiven and truly forgiven them from my heart. Then I realised, I may have moved forward but I kept on looking back. If I kept on looking back then how am I going to move forward, wouldn’t I keep stumbling? I wouldn’t move forward with firm steps because I wouldn’t be looking forward knowing and expecting what is ahead coz I kept on looking back?

Last step that I needed to take was to not call the past to account. Simply treat it as if it never happened. When you meet them again, it’ll just be like how you were with that person before any conflict ever happened. We know it happened but we don’t hold onto it as if it ever happened. We’re starting over, that other person in front of us is now blameless and we can build an even stronger relationship than before because now you are blessing that person. You are giving him even more riches =]. Now friends, that is what I believe total forgiveness is and that is what God has revealed to me. Hence learn to totally forgive, “For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you” (Matthew 6:14). That is the beauty of God’s work in our lives, He will continue to work through us and in us continuously being transformed into His likeness. How great really is Thou art!

Thank you for reading this seriously long note, and I hope whatever you get from this you will bring it back to Him and ask for your own personal revelation. I pray that His name may be glorified more and more in our lives.

To God be the glory forever and ever (Phillipians 4:20), Amen =]!