So I know I may make some people angry , but Im sick and tired of hypocritical people trying to use a Christian viewpoint in the wrong way. You can not continue to hurt, lie, cheat, emotionally abuse etc and expect people to continually stick around to be walked on. It does not mean that you are not forgiven by them, but they arent going to stay around to be abused any longer. Im sorry but I have worked with too many abused women and children over the years who may forgive, but dont have to forget. Trust must be built up again in the right way. Here are some words about what forgiveness is NOT, written by a Christian pastor and speaking to this very subject. (and PS this is not about my family just a soapbox subject for me) FORGIVENESS IS NOT FORGETTING. This is one of the great Christian myths. Well, we forgive and forget. No we don’t! You can’t forgive and forget. You can’t. You were raped, abandoned, abused, cheated on, betrayed, lied about. Forget it? You can’t forget it. It’s impossible. And some will appeal to Bible books like Jeremiah, where it says that God will remember their sin no more. And they’ll say, See? God doesn’t remember our sin. And let me tell you this, God does remember our sin. He’s omniscient, he’s all knowing, he forgets nothing, he knows everything. Right? It’s not like God’s in heaven going, I forgot a whole bunch of things. He would cease to be God. What does it mean that God remembers their sin no more? It means that God chooses not to interact with us based upon what we’ve done, but instead interact with us based upon what Christ has done. It means that he chooses to see us as new creations and he chooses to work for a new future. It means that at the forefront of God’s thinking toward us is not all of the sin that we’ve committed, but all the work that Jesus has done for us and in us and, by grace, will do through us. But it’s not like God has no idea what you did yesterday. He forgets nothing. And I see this sometimes in counseling, where one person will sin against another person and they’ll say, Well, you shouldn’t even remember that. It’s impossible. I had one situation recently. I looked at the husband, I was like, You slept with her best friend. She’s not going to forget that ever. Now, she can choose not to interact with you in light of that. She could choose to forgive you. She can choose to not be stewing on that every minute of every day and seething. But she’s never going to forget that this happened because it was cataclysmic. FORGIVENESS IS NOT NEGLECTING JUSTICE. You can forgive someone and call the police and have them arrested. You can forgive someone and testify against them in court. They’d say, I thought you forgave me. I do. I forgive you. But you’ve committed a crime. You’ve broken the law. And so these are the consequences. If you’ve stolen, you need to pay it back. If you’ve lied, you need to go tell the truth. It’s not a neglecting of justice. You can forgive and pursue justice. FORGIVENESS IS NOT TRUSTING. I hear this all the time. My boyfriend or husband hit me, but he said he’s sorry. Should we just pick up where we left off and keep going? No way. See, trust is built slowly. It’s lost quickly. Those of you, now hear this, I’m your pastor who loves you. Let me put an airbag around this. For those of you who are naive and gullible, trust is to be given slowly, lost quickly. Some of you give your whole heart away and never take it back. Give it away slowly and if someone sins against you grievously, trust has to be rebuilt over time. It’s not trusting. It’s not trusting. Some people can be trusted in time with fruit and keeping with repentance after they’ve gotten help. Other people should never be trusted because the risk is simply too high. This is particularly true with children who are vulnerable. We need to be exceedingly careful with who we trust.
Posted on: Mon, 04 Aug 2014 20:16:45 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015