Week 2: Snapshots- Intentional Forgiveness

I. THE COST OF FORGIVENESS IS ENORMOUS!

Luke 23:34, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”


Secret 1 of Forgiveness: To live through a bad day, and to live an abundant life, begin by forgiving everyone who seems to be trying to ruin your life.


Matthew 18:32-35, “Then the master called the servant in. 'You wicked servant,' he said, 'I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?' In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed. ‘This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.’”

II. The cost of forgiveness is enormous, but THE COST OF UNFORGIVENESS IS ETERNAL!

First, forgiveness is a redemptive response to having been wronged and wounded.


Secret 2 of Forgiveness: To embrace the will to forgive anyone or everyone who seems to be ruining your life, Jesus points you to a starting place… “They don’t know what they are doing.”


Second, forgiveness requires that we wish our wrong doer well.


Third, forgiveness takes time.

C.S. Lewis wrote: “I think I have at last forgiven the cruel schoolmaster who so darkened my youth. I had done it many times before, but this time I think I have really done it.”

Fourth, forgiveness does not require forgetting.


This is Secret 3 of Forgiveness: Forgiving those who hurt you is the key to not being permanently victimized by them.

Fifth, forgiveness ideally leads to reconciliation.


Romans 12:18: “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.”

Matthew 6:14-15 says, “For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”

Six, forgiveness is something we should freely give.


Lewis Smedes says, “Forgiveness is setting the prisoner free and then discovering that the prisoner was you.”

And that’s Secret 4 of Forgiveness: Forgiving others is the key to living in the liberty of the freeing forgiveness Jesus has given us.