Unforgiveness and the Power of PardonExemplo

What's Done Is Done

Everyone has an irrevocable past that has been written on the parchment of time and memory. What's done is done. We can't change our past actions—or the actions of the people around us—but we can change our relationship to those actions. And that happens through forgiveness.

All relationships require forgiveness, even those with other Christians. It's not just unbelievers who can hurt us; in fact, it's often God's kids who hurt us the most. And I'll be the first to say that forgiveness is neither natural nor easy. Rather, it's a learned response that is based on God's forgiveness toward us.

Forgiveness is the Lord's specialty. He knows all there is to know about us, as David reminds us: "The Lord searches all hearts and understands all the intent of the thoughts" (1 Chronicles 28:9). Yet He loves us despite everything and has chosen to forgive us. Through Jesus Christ's substitutionary death on the cross, it was as if God charged into the theater of life, took the incriminating film of our past, present, and future sins, and destroyed it—along with the punishment we truly deserve for those sins.

Having experienced that kind of forgiveness, our own willingness to forgive those who have wronged us should be forever changed. As C.S. Lewis wrote, "To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable, because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you."

We forgive because we have been forgiven. We forgive because it is right, not because it feels right. In the curriculum of spiritual life, forgiveness is a required course. But how do you forgive when you've been hurt deeply and can't seem to loosen the grip of unforgiveness in your heart? And just how many times should you forgive someone who has wronged you? We're going to uncover the answers over the next several days.