I Know You Don’t Want To Forgive Them But Here’s Why You Should

Imagine you and your friend are having a heated debate.

One thing leads to another and you make, what they believe to be, an insensitive comment. They abruptly hang up the phone.

You don’t hear from them for days. A few weeks go by and they post a video on their YouTube channel in which they address a conversation they had with a friend a while back.

In their video, they said that they had an argument and that their friend made an insensitive comment that they could not condone and now that person was canceled.

You put two and two together and realize they are referring to you.

You had no idea all those days and weeks that you had been cut off. You had no idea all those weeks you had been canceled by a long time friend.

It doesn’t matter that you lent them money two months ago, or that you drove them home when they got drunk that one night or that you let them stay at your place until they got back on their feet.

You’re canceled because what you said didn’t sit right with them.

The question is, is it fair? Is it fair to cancel someone for something they said or did?

What if the tables were turned? Would it be so easy to accept being canceled?

The truth is we all make mistakes and we all sin. Just because someone sins differently than you doesn’t give you the right to judge them or worse, cancel them.

Instead, as a Christian, you are to forgive the same way God forgave you. After all, that’s how God showed his love for us when he sent his son to die on the cross. It’s only right that we show our love for Him by forgiving others.

Whether you agree with it or not, throughout the course of the day, week, month, or year you are going to do something that someone else will take offense to or won’t agree with.

Throughout the course of your lifetime, you are going to piss off someone.

Someone is not going to like you or what you did at some point and your simply going to have to deal with that.

Does that make you a terrible person?

Not necessarily.

So why do you deem other people evil when they make mistakes?

Just because someone sins differently than you doesn’t give you the right to judge them or worse, cancel them.

You see when it’s not you making the mistakes it’s easy to point the finger. It’s easy to say someone is a bad person when you only know them for their mistakes.

But what would happen when you made a mistake? How is it that we lack empathy for others when they do wrong but seek empathy when we mess up?

See whatever we give to others we will get in return from God.

“Do not judge others, and God will not judge you; do not condemn others, and God will not condemn you; forgive others and God will forgive you. Give to others and God will give to you. Indeed, you will receive a full measure, a generous helping, poured into your hands — all that you can hold. The measure you use for others is the one that God will use for you” — Luke 6:37–38 (GNT)

See what we don’t realize is that God believes in karma; so whatever you put out you will get back. The unforgiveness that you have dispensed to your neighbor is the same unforgiveness that God will dispense to you.

Thus, it is far better to forgive than to go through life holding a grudge against someone who has offended you.

After all, How can God use you if you’re still offended? How can God use you if you can’t move on from the pain the past has caused you?

He can’t because when you hold on to that anger and hate your heart is not of God.

“If we say we love God, but hate others, we are liars. For we cannot love God, whom we have not seen, if we do not love others, whom we have seen” — 1 John 4:20–21 (GNT)

You can’t love God and not love your neighbor. You can’t love God and hate someone. You can’t love God and live in unforgiveness.

When you choose not to forgive you lack mercy. When you lack mercy you lack love. And when you lack love you lack an association with God because God is love.

Thus, when we forgive those who have wronged us we are not only demonstrating God’s love but we are demonstrating that we have a relationship with God.

After all, forgiveness is how God first loved us.

“Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. And God showed his love for us by sending his only Son into the world, so that we might have life through him. This is what love is: it is not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the means by which our sins are forgiven” — 1 John 4:8–10 (GNT)

When God sent his Son to die on the cross to forgive us of sins we haven’t even committed yet, He demonstrated his love for us.

Love isn’t a noun or an adjective, it’s a verb. Just as you must show your faith by your works you must also show your love by your works.

So, in the same way, that God showed his love for us, we must also show our love for Him by forgiving others.

After all, forgiveness is how God first loved us.

Thanks for reading.