Freedom Through Forgivenessنموونە

Aspects of Forgiveness - The Offense

Now that we have seen that forgiveness is a decision, let's continue and examine other aspects of forgiveness. We see that forgiveness begins with a decision and is followed up with action.

Understanding different aspects of forgiveness will strengthen our decision to forgive and build consistency in the actions we take as a result of our decision.

The Offense

"If your brother sins against you…" - Matthew 18:15a ESV

If you haven't figured it out by now, someone will do something to you that will require you to forgive them. This is part of life. The enemy is at the root of it all (John 10:10), but people will be the ones who will offend you. You will need to know what forgiveness is when this happens.

"Hurting people hurt people."– Unknown.

We live in a world where many people are facing numerous challenges. We don't know what is going on in a person's life. No amount of social media stalking will give you the whole picture. Everyone deals with pain, but everyone deals with it differently.

Sometimes you will be on the receiving end of someone else's mistake. The chances are that you have been offended by someone having a bad day. They could have argued with their spouse, just lost their job, or been hurt by someone else. Most people are not aware enough to realize that they are taking out their pain on someone else. Sometimes they know it later, but that doesn't mean they will come running up to you to apologize.

Levels of Offense

Let's look at getting offended as if it were a wound or injury to your body. One of the things that happens when you play sports is that you get hurt. Like me, you have probably had various types of wounds. I have had wounds when I grazed my knee, and I had another when I broke a bone in my arm playing basketball. Both are wounds, but the care that they need is drastically different.

Most of the time when I scratched my knee, I didn't even get a Band-Aid. I just got up and continued playing with my friends. Who wants to waste time getting a Band-Aid when you are beating the other team in football before school starts? But if I took the time to put cream on it and get the Band-Aid, it would heal faster, and I wouldn't deal with as much pain as I did or leave the scars that were left behind.

When I broke the bone in my arm in high school, healing the wound was a different story.

At the emergency room, when they let me know that my forearm was broken, I knew it was going to be a while before I could play basketball or any other sport. My forearm had to heal, and it would take time for that to happen. I couldn't rush it and needed to do whatever was necessary to allow it to heal.

There are some types of offenses that you should be able to shrug off with minimal help. However, other offenses will take more time and attention to overcome. We need to be honest with ourselves and know when we need help.

Realizing that some wounds hurt more than others is essential to acknowledge. It doesn’t change whether we forgive someone or not, but it does affect how we move forward.

Tomorrow, we will discuss the dangers of ignoring an offense.

Imagine if I didn’t get help when I broke my arm? I would have been in pain without knowing what was really going on. Eventually, yes, my arm would have healed on its own, but chances are it wouldn’t have healed correctly.

For today, remember to Forgive and Live.