Forgiveness How To

Theology and Politics from a Conservative, Biblical Perspective

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Just a quick note: you may have heard that John MacArthur has contracted pneumonia and is currently in the hospital. According to leaders at Grace Community Church, he is not expected to survive. Pray for grace for the family and loved ones. Pray also for this transitional time for Grace Community Church. 

If we Christians are honest with ourselves, we will have to admit we have a problem, at least at times. Some of us have a larger problem than others, but nonetheless, it is still a problem. It can be narrowed down to self-love. We decry it. We deny it. We even do what we can to move away from it if we recognize it as part of our being. Just because we become Christians by receiving God’s free gift of salvation, that, in and of itself, does not negate the self-love we often exhibit toward ourselves. This leads to many problems including the inability to forgive others.

In fact, self-love seems to be at the root of every sin. Since that is the case, then it is extremely important we get a handle on our self-love by first recognizing it and then denying it. The first part of that can be easy; recognizing it. We see our motives (if we are honest), and understand that Self is behind many of them. We don’t want to do something because Self already makes us feel tired of exasperated, providing reasons why we should not do something that God might want us to do.

Let me mention a concrete example of what I’m talking about. The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant is found in Matthew 18:21-35. There, Jesus makes very clear the responsibility of believers to forgive. We are to forgive. It’s that simply put by our Lord. However, we have all sorts of reasons for not forgiving, don’t we? They all boil down to self-love.

In truth, some folks, due to their personalities, are able to forgive easier than others based on their personalities. Let me be completely honest with you here. I am one, because of my type A personality, who has a difficult time forgiving. It is difficult for me to “let it go.” Sadly, that does not please our Lord, so clearly, I’ve been needing to do something about that, haven’t I if I desire to be more like Jesus?

Over the past few months, I’ve done research and it is interesting to see all the various perspectives on how to forgive other people. With respect to Christian views concerning forgiveness, they run the gamut. With respect to secular viewpoints, they also run the gamut.

One particular secular psychology group lists six steps that a person can take to forgive someone of the slights or insults perpetrated against another.[1]

1. Just think about possibly forgiving
2. Imagine what it would look and feel like
3. Ask yourself if this is the right time
4. Plan to protect yourself from future hurt
5. How will you fill the space of not holding a grudge?
6. Make the decision to forgive

The closest they come to actual forgiveness is with steps five and six: How will you fill the space of not holding a grudge and Make the decision to forgive. In a sense, that’s what Christians are supposed to do all the time. But the huge question is: HOW?

I’m amazed at how many times I’ve read something like, “just let it go” from believers and secularists. Just let it go and ignore it, is the designated answer to the age old question that everyone at some point in their life must deal with and can easily relate to regarding how to forgive.

Well, I’ve considered that and even tried to practice it, but it does not work for me. Maybe that’ll work for you depending on your personality. But with my big type A personality, it does not work, period. So what is my recourse? What do I do?

Well, based on what I’ve been studying these days and praying about, the Lord seems to have provided the answer that I needed; an answer that works for me and quite possibly for anyone because it allows us to actually see things differently, more like Jesus sees things.

So, what is it I’m talking about? Put simply, it is to replace my feelings of anger or being offended at someone with compassion. I have to actually replace it with something else that holds my attention away from the tendency to not forgive.

Let me give you a good example from my own life. A few years ago our son and his wife were expecting their second child. My wife was very excited about helping to plan a baby shower with our daughter-in-law’s family and talked to them about it.

Well, my wife hadn’t heard much as the months progressed and again talked about her willingness to help with the shower and was so much looking forward to being there to share in the festivities. Finally, a short while prior to the actual shower event, my wife received a phone call from our daughter-in-law’s mother. It was a pleasant conversation, but during the course of it, the reason for the call became clear. The daughter putting the shower on simply wanted a small event with just “family” members. That meant no in-laws.

My wife was understandably upset at purposefully being left out. But my wife has an uncanny ability to forgive other people; to understand them because that’s who she is based on her personality and Christianity. However, I was not so understanding.

After the event, I mentioned it to my son that we had been told that they just wanted a small gathering with just family members, leaving my wife out of the mix. I told him that not to create problems, but to help him understand that his mother – my wife – had really wanted to be part of it and that she had not simply not shown up. He was slightly upset about it and stated that he saw no reason why my wife/his mother could not have been invited as it would have been only one more person in attendance.

In any event, things were fine after that except within me. As I’ve said, I have a hard time forgiving as I should even though I have absolutely no right to hold a grudge against anyone since I am no longer under any condemnation from God Himself (Romans 8). God seriously frowns on an inability to forgive.

We did get together with our daughter-in-law’s family a few times after that, but something always stuck in my craw. Why? Obviously because I had not forgiven how my wife was treated as though that was the end of the world. So, in the back of my mind, I carried the whole incident forward with me and of course, it is antithetical to what actually being a Christian means.

When it would come to the forefront of my mind, I’d think about it and watch my blood pressure rise a bit. Then I’d push it to the back of my mind (believing I was actually letting it go, which I was not), for it to only come to the surface again at some point in the future. Clearly, I had not forgiven and forgotten the way our Lord expects me to do and the way He Himself has done with my own personal sin against Him. What a hypocrite I have been!

But don’t worry because I am getting somewhere that will give you a very practical way to absolve and truly “let go” and forgive those who have wronged you.

Recently, my wife and I were talking about how exercising compassion in the life of the Christian toward others is truly exemplifying Jesus; what the Bible calls “imitating” Him. Isn’t this what Jesus did all the time? He never turned anyone away from Him who approached Him honestly. He never responded in kind when He was slapped in the face on the night of His illegal trials after being betrayed by one of His own. He never held a grudge and always looked for a way to help someone see the truth about Him so that they also could gain eternal life.

In short, His pity and compassion moved Him to not even consider Himself, but to always continue to reach out to others, even as He hung on the cross. One of His concerns there was that God the Father would not hold those who physically nailed Him to the cross guilty of murder. Another concern He had was for the thief who pleaded with Him that He would simply “remember” Him when He came into His kingdom. To that, Jesus stated that the thief would be with Jesus in paradise that very day. Had Jesus been preoccupied with the wrongs done to Him that He certainly did not deserve, that might not have happened. Jesus was virtuous and perfect to the end.

I cannot imagine it. The unbearable pain Jesus was dealing with – emotionally and physically – not to mention the separation from His Father that He had never experienced before, yet in spite of all this, His concerns were for those around Him. Instead of harboring resentment or holding a grudge, He continued trying to reach out to them and even taking care of their sin by asking the Father to not hold that against them. The Father complied because He loved His Son so much and because He is Love.

Okay, so I’m not Jesus and even though He lives in me, how do I approach this whole subject of forgiving others as the Lord has forgiven me? Well, it has become much easier recently because of: pity and compassion. As stated, I cannot simply let go of something to replace it with something else. So, in the case of harboring a grudge against someone, I cannot simply “let it go” because it doesn’t go anywhere. It simply retreats to the back of my mind where it may easily rise to the surface at some future point. It’s not gone. It’s still resident.

However, if I begin to focus on that person and literally find ways to exercise compassion toward them, I have found that that compassion pushes out unforgiveness.

The sister of our daughter-in-law in question is on the autism spectrum. She can be pleasant enough, but also tends to be very rigid. That is her security. My wife, having taught special day class for over twenty years is extremely familiar with the mindset of those on the Autism Spectrum.

So my wife and I discussed the situation along with my difficulty in actually forgiving the sister. My wife pointed out that because the sister is on the spectrum, she probably finds larger gatherings or gatherings with people she doesn’t know that well extremely difficult to handle. The thought of that likely fills her with major anxiety. Her natural reaction to that is to not want to go there, to avoid the situation altogether.

So, it is very likely that because of her anxiety she only wanted her own family members around (along with spouses of her siblings), people that she knows well. When I began to focus on that, instead of how she had ostensibly treated my wife, my heart actually began softening a great deal, pushing out any hard feelings toward her. I was replacing my unforgiving attitude with the compassion that Jesus has for us. I was bringing Him glory because I was saying NO to unforgiveness and YES to compassion leading to forgiveness.

Is this situation in me permanent? No, I can still be tempted to nurse that old grudge, but every time I am tempted if I instead focus on why she does what she does, compassion rises to the surface to replace those hard feelings. Every time.

In this way, I am not simply trying to “let it go,” but actually replacing a lack of forgiveness with a compassion that glorifies the Lord and releases me from an unforgiving attitude. I’m replacing one thing with something else.

For too long, I have failed to understand how Jesus could treat people with kindness after they treated Him with cruelty, either in words or with physical violence. I am finally beginning to understand that when He looked at people, He did so from the vantage point of true compassion. He pitied them, not in a disdainful way, but in a way that led Him to see them with kindness, compassion and love. This is the hallmark of what it means to be a Christian because it is imitating the Master.

In Mark 10:17-29, we read of the Rich Young Ruler. It appears to us that this young man was looking for attaboys from Jesus. He wanted to know what he needed to do to inherit eternal life. Jesus mentioned the Law to which the young man responded that he had kept all the commands since his youth. The next sentence is telling.

Jesus looked at him, loved him, and said to him, “There is one thing you lack: Go, sell everything you own and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow Me.” (Mark 10:21)

Jesus loved him. I’m quite certain Jesus’ heart broke as the man walked away after he heard from Jesus that he needed to sell all that he had and follow Jesus. The man wanted to be saved but he wanted to keep all of his wealth too because that’s where his heart was too.

For me (and maybe for you), I cannot simply let go of slights or offenses perpetrated against me. Yet, God wants and expects me to forgive as He forgives me. There is no question about this and there’s no number limit to the amount of times I must forgive because God does not have a number limit placed on the times He will forgive me.

The problem for me is in actually doing the forgiving from the heart. I cannot simply “let it go,” but God has been gracious in helping me realize that for me, the way to actually forgive is to seek ways to have empathy and exercise compassion toward those who wrong me. Once I do that, I can then replace my lack of forgiveness with an empathic and compassionate heart toward them.

This is exactly what it means to be imitators of Jesus.

Be imitators of God, therefore, as beloved children, and walk in love, just as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us as a fragrant sacrificial offering to God. (Ephesians 5:1-2)

This is how I can walk in love not only toward my fellow believers, but to those in the world who remain enemies of God. It is how we provide them with a testimony that Jesus lives within us through the indwelling Holy Spirit and reaches out to others through us.

If God is love (He is), we who call ourselves believers, Christians and followers of Jesus must also live lives of love. It all starts and ends with forgiveness. If we cannot truly forgive, we are simply not loving others.

God did not have to, but He chose a way to forgive those who come to Him in faith through His Son’s sacrificial life, death and resurrection. That forgiveness granted to us is permanent, unfailing and results in our true justification before Him. How can we call ourselves believers and followers of Jesus if we cannot forgive (love), as He forgives us?

This is one of the biggest ways I know of to break the chains of our ruinous self-love. Truly forgiving others, by choosing and exercising compassion toward them, is the best way to reject Self and to cast a lack of forgiveness far from us.

[1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/skinny-revisited/202207/how-forgive-in-six-steps

Theology and Politics from a Conservative, Biblical Perspective

Source: https://studygrowknowblog.com/2025/07/14/forgiveness-how-to/