Forgive Us Our Debts: Mercy That Frees

But here's the thing, refusing to forgive is also not free. Bitterness has a price too. It just spreads the price over a lifetime with interest. Resentment is a slow leak. It hardens the heart. It distorts the way that we see other people. It puts a wall between us and joy, and perhaps most painfully, it keeps us tethered to the person who hurt us. It's like the saying, you're letting them live in your head rent free. [00:56:34] (32 seconds)  #rentfreeBitterness

That is why forgiveness is so hard. It's not a feeling, it is the transfer of cost. The wrong was real. Something was taken from you. There is a debt and forgiveness is the act of saying that I am not gonna collect on this. I will let it go. I will eat the loss myself rather than try to extract the payment from the other person. And here's the beauty of it. It is actually and exactly the shape of what God did for us on the cross. [00:55:03] (30 seconds)  #forgivenessIsCostly

When you forgive another person, you are in a small and imperfect doing what God did on the cross. You are letting the cost land on you rather than demanding it land on them. And that is precisely why forgiveness feels impossible some days. Because it is not free. It costs the forgiver, and the deeper the wound, the higher the cost. [00:55:56] (31 seconds)  #imitateCrossForgiveness

So, you find yourself this morning still wrestling with the question, whether the debt before God is something you have ever really come to terms with, this is the doorway. You do not need to fix yourself first. You don't need to forgive everyone first. You come as you are to a father whose son has already paid what you cannot pay, and you ask for the forgiveness that he is more than eager to give you. [01:01:36] (28 seconds)  #comeAsYouAreForgiven

That is why forgiveness is so hard. It's not a feeling, it is the transfer of cost. The wrong was real. Something was taken from you. There is a debt and forgiveness is the act of saying that I am not gonna collect on this. I will let it go. I will eat the loss myself rather than try to extract the payment from the other person. And here's the beauty of it. It is actually and exactly the shape of what God did for us on the cross. He did not pretend that our sin was nothing. He did not just wave it away as a misunderstanding. He absorbed the cost himself. [00:55:03] (40 seconds)