September 06, 2026 · forgiveness

Forgiving as We Were Forgiven

Colossians 3:13

Some things weigh more than they seem to.

A conversation we keep replaying in our mind.

A betrayal that happened years ago, but still changes our mood the moment we remember that person's name.

An apology that never came.

An injustice no one ever acknowledged.

Something we say we've "gotten over," but that still shows up every time someone touches the wound.

We can keep working.

We can keep smiling.

We can keep going to church.

We can keep living our lives.

And still be carrying it.

That's how resentment works.

It doesn't always make noise.

Sometimes it just travels with us.

And a person can get so used to the weight that they start believing they're not carrying it anymore.

That's why Colossians 3:13 confronts us so directly:

"Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye."

That last part completely changes the conversation:

"Even as Christ forgave you."

The measure of Christian forgiveness isn't how much the other person deserves.

The measure is how much we ourselves have been forgiven.

Forgiving Doesn't Mean Saying It Didn't Hurt

Sometimes we talk about forgiveness as if it simply meant saying:

"It doesn't matter."

But it did matter.

If someone hurt you, it mattered.

If someone betrayed your trust, it mattered.

If someone humiliated you, lied to you, abandoned you, or abused your trust, it mattered.

Biblical forgiveness doesn't require calling something small when it was actually big.

It doesn't require saying something wrong was fine.

And it doesn't require pretending there were no consequences.

Christ Himself shows us this.

God didn't look at sin and say:

"It doesn't matter."

The cross proves exactly the opposite.

Sin was serious enough that it carried a cost.

Forgiveness was offered to us freely, but it wasn't cheap.

Christ paid for it.

That's why forgiving doesn't mean denying how serious the harm was.

It means deciding that the harm will no longer hold authority over our hearts.

We can say:

"What you did was wrong."

And also say:

"I'm not going to spend the rest of my life bound to what you did."

That's different.

We often think forgiving means emotionally clearing the other person of everything.

But forgiveness begins at a deeper level.

It's handing over to God our right to live seeking revenge.

It's letting go of constantly feeding the debt.

It's saying:

"Lord, this hurt me. You know how much. But I don't want to keep carrying it."

And sometimes that prayer will have to be repeated more than once.

Because some wounds don't disappear after a single prayer.

Forgiveness Can Be a Decision Before It Becomes a Feeling

Some people wait to feel like forgiving before they do it.

The problem is that feeling might take a long time to arrive.

Sometimes it never comes on its own.

Biblical forgiveness often begins as a decision of obedience.

"I don't feel like I can do this yet, Lord, but I want to begin."

That's not hypocrisy.

That's faith.

It's recognizing that our heart needs help.

We can decide to forgive and still feel pain.

We can decide to forgive and still have difficult memories.

We can decide to forgive and still need time to heal.

Forgiveness doesn't automatically erase the memory.

What starts to change is the power that memory holds over us.

Little by little we stop living in reaction to the wound.

Forgiving Is Not the Same as Reconciling

In Matthew 18:21-22, Peter asks Jesus:

"Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?"

And Jesus answers:

"I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven."

Jesus wasn't handing Peter a spiritual calculator.

He wasn't saying:

"Once you hit 490, you're done."

The point was that forgiveness was never meant to become a ledger we keep carefully.

But there's something very important we need to understand here:

Forgiving is not exactly the same as reconciling.

Forgiveness can begin with one person.

Reconciliation requires two.

Restoring a relationship usually calls for things like truth, repentance, change, accountability, and rebuilding trust.

And sometimes that reconciliation won't be possible.

Some relationships have ended.

Some people are no longer around.

Some situations call for keeping distance, wisely.

And some cases require setting boundaries.

Forgiving someone doesn't mean automatically giving them the same access to your life they had before.

It doesn't mean ignoring destructive patterns.

It doesn't mean going back into an unsafe situation.

It doesn't mean acting as if nothing ever happened.

We can forgive and still set boundaries.

We can forgive and say:

"I wish you well, but this relationship can't continue the way it was."

We can forgive someone without immediately trusting them again.

Because forgiveness is offered.

Trust is rebuilt.

And those are two different things.

This matters because some people live with guilt, thinking:

"If I really forgave, I should go back to relating with them exactly like before."

Not necessarily.

Grace doesn't eliminate wisdom.

We Forgive Because We Were Forgiven First

Ephesians 4:32 says:

"And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you."

There's that same idea again.

Our forgiveness begins by looking backward.

Before we look at the person who hurt us, we look at what Christ did for us.

That doesn't make the harm disappear.

But it changes our position.

Because none of us stands before God on merit alone.

We live by grace.

God forgave us when we couldn't pay our debt.

He gave us mercy.

He let us come back.

He loved us first.

And now He calls us to become people who also extend grace.

That can be hard.

Very hard.

Especially when we think:

"But that person doesn't deserve my forgiveness."

And maybe that's true.

Maybe they don't deserve it.

But we didn't receive forgiveness because we deserved it either.

We received it by grace.

Forgiving doesn't mean saying the other person deserves what we're giving.

It means recognizing that we too are living off something we could never earn.

What We Don't Let Go Of Can End Up Holding Us

Mark 11:25 says:

"And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses."

Jesus takes forgiveness so seriously that He brings it right into the place of prayer.

Because resentment doesn't stay contained in one relationship.

It starts spilling into other areas of our life.

It can affect how we trust.

How we react.

How we treat people who weren't even the ones who hurt us.

Sometimes someone new ends up paying, emotionally, for what someone from our past did.

A wound can turn into suspicion.

Suspicion can turn into distance.

Distance can turn into isolation.

And little by little, what someone else did starts to define how we live.

That's too much power to hand over to whoever hurt us.

Resentment promises to protect us.

It tells us:

"If you don't hold onto it, you'll forget what they did to you."

But it often does something different instead.

It keeps us tied to the very moment we most want to leave behind.

The other person may have moved on with their life.

And we're still having conversations with them in our head five years later.

Still thinking about what we should have said.

Still imagining the apology we wish we'd received.

Still waiting for them to finally acknowledge the harm.

And while we wait, we keep carrying the debt.

Forgiving doesn't always free the other person from a consequence.

Very often, it frees us from the weight first.

Forgiving Doesn't Mean Justice Disappears

We need to be clear about this too.

There are times when forgiving and pursuing justice can exist at the same time.

We can forgive and report wrongdoing.

We can forgive and set consequences.

We can forgive and protect other people.

We can forgive and let the proper authorities do their work.

Justice and forgiveness aren't necessarily enemies.

Forgiving means we leave vengeance in God's hands.

It doesn't mean we stop calling evil by its name.

There are small wounds.

And there are deep wounds.

There are situations that can be resolved with a conversation.

And there are situations that require boundaries, professional help, pastoral intervention, legal support, or protection.

The command to forgive should never become a tool used to force someone to stay where they continue to be harmed.

Who Are You Still Carrying?

Maybe while you were reading this, a name came to mind.

Maybe you don't want to admit it yet.

But you know exactly who it is.

Maybe it was a week ago.

Maybe it was twenty years ago.

Maybe that person never asked for forgiveness.

Maybe they don't even recognize they did anything wrong.

And part of you might think:

"If I forgive, it feels like they win."

But forgiving doesn't mean they win.

It means we're no longer letting that thing keep governing us.

Maybe today you can't say:

"It doesn't hurt anymore."

That's okay.

Maybe you also can't say:

"I trust them again."

You don't have to.

Maybe the first step is simply:

"Lord, I want to want to forgive."

Sometimes that's where we start.

And then:

"Lord, help me let go of this debt."

And maybe tomorrow we'll have to repeat it.

And next week again.

But every time we hand the resentment over to God, our grip loosens a little.

Until one day we discover that what we carried for so long doesn't weigh the same anymore.

This Week

I want to invite you to name one person or situation that's still taking up too much space inside you.

You don't have to call them today.

You don't have to write to them.

You don't have to automatically restore any relationship.

Just bring that person before God.

Tell Him the truth.

"Lord, this still hurts."

"I'm still angry."

"I still want an explanation."

"I still find it hard to forgive."

And then add:

"But I don't want to keep living bound to this."

Ask God to begin doing in you what you still can't do on your own.

Because forgiving as Christ forgave us doesn't mean we were never hurt.

It means the wound won't have the final word.

Christ will.