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Forgiveness is one of the hardest things to do when you have been wronged.

But within our culture and churches, there is a lot of confusion about forgiveness, the difference between forgiveness and reconciliation, and the difference between forgiveness and trust.

In Luke 17, Jesus is talking to his disciples about this very thing, and in it, he raises some important questions we have to deal with: He said to his disciples, “Offenses will certainly come, but woe to the one through whom they come! It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea than for him to cause one of these little ones to stumble. Be on your guard. If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times in a day, and comes back to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.”

One of the things that gets in our way of forgiveness and experiencing the freedom that comes from forgiveness is our hearts and inability to forgive and let go.

In this passage, Jesus gives us a few questions to pause and ask the next time an offense happens.

Did they sin against me, or did I not like it? This is a phrase Jesus uses often, “If your brother sins against you…” Just wants us to stop and ask, did they sin against me? This is the first question we must ask ourselves about forgiveness and reconciliation.

Many times, if we are honest, that person did not sin against us or God; they just did something we didn’t like. Our preferences and desires are not laws of the universe, as much as we think they should be.

Now, that doesn’t mean you don’t say anything. It might be worth a conversation. But it does change how we view it.

Can I overlook this? Proverbs 19:11 says it is “a virtue to overlook an offense.”

This means not everything offensive is worth a conversation. There are some that you should say, “I’m choosing to overlook that.”

Now, what that is for you and me might be different. But we need to ask the question at least.

What is happening in me? Jesus says to be on your guard. In other translations, it says, “Watch yourself.” Why? When someone sins against us, we need to ask what is happening in us. Why are we so bothered by that? What button did they push in me?

Often, when an offense comes, there is a lesson for us to learn.

Many times, the reason we find something offensive or are bothered by something is because it connects to something in our past. 

How do you know? Does your reaction match the situation? Ruth Haley Barton said, “The more volatile and out of control our responses are, the more we can be sure that we are reacting out of old adaptive patterns rather than God-graced, Spirit-filled responses.”

What if they repent? We have to be honest about one reason we don’t go to people who sin against us: we don’t want them to repent.

If they repent, then I have to forgive them. You’re supposed to forgive them regardless, but I have a different thing to face if they repent. Many people don’t bring up their hurt with the other person because if they apologize and seek reconciliation, now I have to face the music and move forward. If I stay put, I can stay mad and not move forward. It gets to stay their fault. 

But it isn’t just around repentance that can trip us up now. We aren’t sure what a healthy relationship would look like with someone who has hurt us or someone we have a dysfunctional relationship with. 

For example, if you have a broken relationship with your child, parent, spouse, or friend. You know what that looks like. You can navigate their silence, insults, or mean words, lashing out and slamming doors. You don’t know how to navigate the relationship when those aren’t present. What if that stops all of a sudden? You are in a new relationship with the same person, which can be disorienting. 

If that person who has sinned against you repents, you lose the upper hand you think you have. You lose the ability to sit in judgment of them like you are. I’m not saying those are good things you are doing, but we all do those things at different points.

What if they don’t repent? We do have to ask ourselves what we will do if they don’t repent. Jesus says, “If they repent, forgive…” Does that mean that our forgiveness is based on their apology? No. Our forgiveness is a choice we make, regardless of what they do. In his great book Forgive, Tim Keller said, “To forgive someone’s debt to you is to absorb the debt yourself. Forgiveness, then, is a form of voluntary suffering. In forgiving, you choose to bear the cost rather than retaliating.”

While repentance and reconciliation are always the goal in a broken relationship, that isn’t always possible. The other person may not repent or even be alive to repent. So forgiveness is not dependent on the other person. Reconciliation is, but not forgiveness. 

Forgiveness is a choice you make on your own. 

And often, when I’ve been deeply wounded, forgiveness will come before I feel like forgiving. 

I told a story on Sunday about a situation where I was wounded deeply. Katie and I, before we even had a conversation with the person who hurt us, started to pray for them. She started first, and then slowly, God softened my heart. 

Praying for the person who has hurt me has a way of seeing them the way God does and softening my heart towards them. Now, that doesn’t mean that I am excusing what someone did. But it does help me to see them, myself, and God more clearly.