Study – How To Forgive From The Heart

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Short Summary
The study emphasizes forgiveness as a vital, active choice rooted in God’s character and essential for spiritual freedom and growth. It clarifies that forgiveness involves releasing resentment without condoning wrongdoing or ignoring consequences, highlighting both the psychological and spiritual benefits of forgiving others. Practical application includes setting healthy boundaries, seeking reconciliation, and continually reflecting on God’s grace to foster a forgiving heart, even in challenging situations.

Long Summary
Detailed Summary of the Forgiveness Study

Introduction and Context
– The study on forgiveness was part of a weekend series, with forgiveness themes appearing throughout other lessons.
– The presenter plans to briefly cover the first four sections and focus mainly on the fifth section, which deals with practical application.
– Forgiveness is recognized as a cornerstone of Christian faith, enabling spiritual freedom—not a license for wrongdoing but freedom in Christ.

Section 1: What is Forgiveness?
– Forgiveness is fundamentally pardoning someone for an offense, releasing them from the debt of wrongdoing.
– It does not mean condoning the wrong, forgetting it happened, or restoring trust immediately.
– Forgiveness involves letting go of resentment and bitterness and offering grace.
– Key insight: Resentment is like an ongoing story that changes and grows as it is retold; harboring resentment blocks true forgiveness.
– A poignant quote was shared: “Forgiveness is releasing a prisoner and discovering the prisoner was you.”

Section 2: Why Must We Forgive?
– Forgiveness is necessary because God forgives us (referencing Matthew 6 and Mark 11).
– Forgiving others frees us spiritually and emotionally; bitterness acts like chains that stunt spiritual growth and steal joy and peace, which are fruits of the Spirit.
– Unforgiveness negatively impacts multiple relationships and blocks communication with God.
– The study noted that some scriptures—such as “forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do”—have textual variants, with the oldest manuscripts omitting those words.
– Forgiveness reflects God’s character of love and mercy, which sometimes includes justice (e.g., destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah was an act of love).
– Psychological studies (International Forgiveness Institute) confirm that unforgiveness harms mental and emotional health, showing humans are made for love and forgiveness.
– Forgiveness is a choice and a deliberate act of will, essential for breaking cycles of resentment.
– Forgiveness is not optional for believers: “If from your heart you do not forgive, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” (Matthew 6:14-15)
– The principle of reciprocity: “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” (Matthew 5:7)
– Forgiveness is within our control; holding back forgiveness limits the mercy we receive from God.

Section 3: Parables Illustrating Forgiveness
– The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant (Matthew 18:21-35) teaches about unlimited forgiveness—“seventy times seven” times.
– The Parable of the Prodigal Son emphasizes repentance and forgiveness; the son repents and is joyfully restored by the father.
– The older brother’s resentment highlights the dangers of unforgiveness.
– These parables show that God’s forgiveness is the foundation and motivation for forgiving others.
– Forgiveness can be seen as pre-forgiveness, anticipating repeated offenses but choosing forgiveness ahead of time.

Section 4: Ultimate Forgiveness and Christ’s Sacrifice
– God’s forgiveness is made possible through Christ’s sacrifice, which satisfies justice while extending mercy.
– Forgiveness does not negate justice; consequences can remain.
– Old Testament sacrifices foreshadowed Christ’s ultimate sacrifice.
– Discussion on whether it is ever appropriate not to forgive:
– Some believe sins against the Holy Spirit are unforgivable.
– Judas Iscariot is often cited as an example of unforgiveness due to his betrayal.
– Forgiveness is distinct from justice and setting boundaries.
– Scriptures such as Luke 17:3-4 show forgiveness is connected to repentance; “If he repents, forgive him.”
– Some debate exists over whether forgiveness requires repentance; many conclude that believers should forgive regardless of repentance to avoid harboring bitterness.
– The study distinguishes between forgiveness inside the household of faith (where accountability and repentance are emphasized) and outside (where forgiveness may be extended regardless).

Section 5: Practical Application – Living a Life of Forgiveness
– Forgiveness frees us from emotional, spiritual, and physical burdens (“monkeys” or encumbrances).
– Setting healthy boundaries is necessary: forgiving does not mean allowing repeated harm (illustrated by the example of petting a cat that might bite).
– Forgiveness is a process that may require patience and repeated decisions, not always a one-time event.
– Practical steps include:
– Recognizing and writing down areas of unforgiveness in one’s heart.
– Praying about these areas regularly.
– Reflecting on God’s forgiveness as motivation.
– Seeking reconciliation where possible, understanding that forgiveness is often the first step toward full restoration.
– Forgiving others is essential for our own peace and spiritual health; bitterness is described as taking poison and expecting someone else to die.
– Forgiveness is not primarily for the offender but for the forgiver’s healing.
– The study emphasized the importance of responding rather than reacting, allowing time to calm down before addressing offenses.
– Knowing others personally can help foster empathy and make forgiveness easier.
– It is better to forgive someone who may not deserve it than to withhold forgiveness from someone who does.
– Forgiveness must be balanced with justice and accountability—God is the ultimate judge.
– Scriptures cited:
– Matthew 5:23-24 (reconciliation before offering gifts to God)
– Philippians 4:6-7 (prayer as support for forgiveness)
– Proverbs 19:11: “The discretion of a man deferreth his anger; and it is his glory to pass over a transgression.”
– Romans 12:20-21 (doing good to enemies as a form of forgiveness)
– Ezekiel 3:16-19 (we are watchmen for one another, responsible to warn but not to judge)
– Forgiveness requires a conscious act of will, not merely emotion.
– The study encouraged ongoing personal reflection and maintenance of forgiveness as a lifestyle.

Closing Thoughts
– Forgiveness is at the heart of the Christian faith, flowing from God’s grace through Christ’s sacrifice.
– It is liberating but challenging and mandated.
– Forgiveness demonstrates love, patience, and mercy.
– Maintaining a forgiving heart is essential for spiritual growth and peace.
– Participants were encouraged to use the note cards provided to keep track of unforgiveness areas and work through them in prayer.

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Selected Bible Verses Referenced:

– Matthew 6:14-15: “For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”
– Matthew 5:7: “Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.”
– Matthew 5:23-24: “Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.”
– Matthew 18:21-22: “Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.”
– Luke 17:3-4: “Take heed to yourselves: If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive him.”
– Romans 12:20-21: “Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: For in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.”
– Philippians 4:6-7: “Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”
– Proverbs 19:11: “The discretion of a man deferreth his anger; and it is his glory to pass over a transgression.”
– Ezekiel 3:16-19: “Son of man, I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel…”

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Summary:
This comprehensive study on forgiveness highlights forgiveness as a deliberate, ongoing choice critical to Christian living. It emphasizes that forgiveness is not about excusing sin or forgetting but releasing resentment and mirroring God’s mercy. Forgiveness benefits both the offended and offender, fostering spiritual health, peace, and growth. While justice and boundaries remain important, forgiveness is mandated by scripture and essential for relationship restoration. Practical steps include prayer, reflection, setting boundaries, and seeking reconciliation, with an understanding that forgiveness reflects God’s grace through Christ’s sacrifice.

Transcript

You that has one right now called it.

Okay, well, this, this particular study, there’s obviously for, for all the other presenters, we know how much work we put into creating these studies.

And for this one, you may not realize it, but I’m sure some of you have, that you have already done this study this weekend. In fact, little bits of this forgiveness has shown up in everybody’s study lesson. So we’re actually going to breeze through the majority of this and we’re going to be skipping right to the end.

As you can see, I have a central theme and I have four sections on the front half of your handout. These are going to be the ones that I’m just going to give some brief overviews, and if you are so moved that there is something you feel is lacking or missing and you have a comment, I’m absolutely happy to take that on the backside. We have section five, as we did in my previous study, and that’s the real meat of it, the practical application.

All right, so our central theme of forgiveness, and I don’t think anybody here thinks, man, I don’t want to forgive. No one here thinks that, and we understand that. We understand that forgiveness is necessary and something that we will be doing that God does all the time.

And so I don’t think we really need to dwell much on that. But as you know, God forgives. His forgiveness towards us is the same thing that we want to emulate towards others, and it is, as I’ve written here, the cornerstone of Christian faith, and I have in there enabling spiritual freedom.

And I just want to clarify, spiritual freedom doesn’t give you the right to do anything. This is a freedom that we have in Christ.

Our question one, what comes to mind when you hear the word forgiveness?

I don’t think we need to spend much time on this. You all know what forgiveness is. We’ve talked about it in every single study leading up to this.

So what I’m going to say is that what it is, forgiveness fundamentally is an act of pardoning someone for an offense, releasing them from the debt of that offense, and here’s the important part. It is not condoning a wrong activity or forgetting it happened, but choosing to release the person from the burden of wrongdoing and letting go of resentment.

That’s an important thing of what it is and what it isn’t.

Forgiveness isn’t about forgetting or excusing bad behavior. It doesn’t mean there are no consequences, and it doesn’t mean that trust is immediately restored.

It’s about releasing the burden of resentment and bitterness from our hearts and then offering grace to the offender.

Does anybody have any quick comments on this?

Brother Kent, I’ve heard of the thought resentment is a story that’s told over and over and over again and it keeps coming up, and the more the story is told, the more it changes, and if we have a resentment, we keep building and changing that over time. Absolutely. We want to get rid of that part, that aspect of it.

If you can’t get rid of that, there’s no forgiveness. You’re still holding on to it. Anybody else? Sister Sarah, just a quick definition. Someone once said that forgiveness is releasing a prisoner and finding out that the prisoner was you.

Absolutely spot on.

Moving on to our section number two. Why must we forgive? Right. I think we know we have to forgive, and the reason why is.

And if you want to, with this handout, you can read through these scriptures and review that. But for our discussion points here, I think Jesus makes it clear in Matthew 6 and Mark 11 that forgiveness of others is tied to our own reception of forgiveness from God.

And we can talk a little bit about, if you want, the benefits of forgiving that you get.

Forgiving someone is freeing for you. Bitterness and unforgivingness are chains that hold us, and those chains, they have a detrimental effect on your spiritual and emotional well being. They hold you back. That’s a huge benefit of forgiving, because now you can move forward.

You can, by the grace of God, continue on and grow.

Also. It is a direct reflection upon the character of God. When we forgive, we demonstrate his character of Christ and how he watches over the whole world. Now, a consequence for not forgiving, as I said before, it’s that stunted spiritual growth. An unforgiving Spirit blocks our communication with God.

Again, going back into Matthew and Mark, the bitterness and resentment, these negative emotions can fester, they can continue to grow, and they can then affect other relationships that had nothing to do with how the first one went down to begin with. This gives you a lack of peace. Unforgiveness steals peace and joy, and those are both fruits of the Spirit. So unforgiveness is actively working against the Holy Spirit in our lives. These are pretty big deals.

I saw a hand in the back there early on in the studies. I heard a scripture that really pushes my buttons, I suppose, and that is the one that that’s furious that Jesus said, forgive them, Father. They know not what they do. That’s furious. But if you were to read the dialogue, it says, forgive them not, for they know exactly what they’re doing.

And they did know exactly. They were killing our Lord. They wanted to kill him. They did everything they could. So, because there’s many other ones about forgiveness, but that one there, you know, because they deliberately killed my Lord and yours, I don’t have any sympathy for any of them.

That’s up to the Lord. But because it’s not in the oldest manuscripts, I go now with Stephen, it said lay it not to their charge. But wasn’t it laid to Paul’s charge with all the suffering that he did? Of course he paid for that, and that’s why he’s one of the.

He’s the top apostle as far as scriptures go and things. So anyway, forgiveness, we can’t be more forgiving, more holy, more than our Heavenly Father. When he destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah or the flood, it was love, not hatred or anything, because he knew if they continued on in that they’d be incorrigible, they wouldn’t survive when the kingdom’s established. So it’s not. That’s love that when he sent them in to destroy the different nations, that’s not any evil intent.

That’s love to bring them to their senses and to be obedient and loving over. Very good.

I see a hand over there and I’m going to call on my eldest daughter. First, we should forgive others because God forgives us. Very good. Absolutely. Thank you very much, dad.

We are studying this subject of forgiveness under the umbrella of scriptural teaching and our relationship to our Heavenly Father. But you may be interested to know that there is internationally an organization called the International Forgiveness Institute. It is a study in psychology, completely apart from the religious connotations, and what psychologists have found is that holding in unforgiveness, holding in grudges and hatred, produces emotional and mental instability. They recognize that this is the way that the human mind is made up or is created.

I should say that we are going to be healthier if we forgive. I think this is really astonishing. It’s another indicator that we, in fact, are made by the Heavenly Father and that we are made to love. Anything outside of love produces, well, in this case, psychiatric trouble, psychiatric problems. So to answer your question, why must we forgive?

It’s not only for the benefit of those that we have had something against, but our own mental, emotional, and in our case, spiritual health depends upon it. Over.

Yes, absolutely. I love that. There’s a whole institute out there just now figured that out.

When you are stuck in a cycle of unforgiving, it becomes almost a habit when you continue to think on these things, your brain glazes those neurons and it becomes easier and easier each time to get stuck in that loop, and it becomes harder and harder to break it. Recognizing this right at the beginning, as fast as you can, and stopping it will go a long way in helping with that healing process of forgiveness. Yes, dad, you reminded me of something else that’s important in this. Forgiveness is a choice. We have to mentally make the choice to forgive.

We don’t. We get stuck in that same cycle that you’re talking about, the status quo cycle where things get reinforced over and over again. To stop it, we must recognize that we’re in the cycle that we have need of giving forgiveness and then deliberately, voluntarily choose to forgive over. Yeah, I have down in my question, why is it not optional for believers to forgive others? And I think that goes along with it.

Yeah, you have to make an active choice, an active action in forgiving. But for believers, for us, why is it not even an option? And I think we’ve got these scriptures that point out this is a direct reflection upon God’s character of forgiveness.

With Brendan, pardon me. One thing I’ve found interesting for a very long time now is, I suppose time’s relative, but is how God puts us in direct control of this whole subject and others, many others as well.

When Jesus the Beatitudes in Matthew, chapter five, when he says, blessed are the merciful, well, why are they blessed? Because they will obtain mercy, and blessed are the peacemakers, etc. Etc, and then of course, we have the Lord’s Prayer, forgive me as I forgive those who trespass against me. You know, I think Kathy brought out Kathy Brooks, that, you know, forgiveness isn’t without, I’ll say, in a sense, merit, if you want to call it that.

That’s, I guess, a little bit of a different subject. But the beauty is, as we forgive others, we are forgiven. So all of these various facets, the power to forgive and the power of being forgiven on our end is in our control. So if God says, how much mercy do you want? Well, I want all the mercy, so I’m going to give as much mercy as possible.

So his whole thing is you get what you give, and there’s a symmetry and a real beauty to that. The more forgiving you are, the more merciful you are, the more forgiveness you get, the more mercy you get. I mean, he puts it literally right in your control, and again, we’re talking one to one.

You know, I’m sure it’s been brought up and I’m sure everybody agrees I can’t forgive something someone else did to someone else that, you know, something I’m not directly involved in, but because I want it to have as much mercy and forgiveness as possible. Those who sin against me or who act against me or real or perceived doesn’t matter. That we should have. It should be a default. Forgiveness, mercy, and even not taking offense.

I love. There’s Brother Russell. I think it’s in the question book. I think a sister asks the pastor that, hey, there’s this brother in our class that is just. No matter what I do, he’s just so offensive.

You know, every study, every class, every arrangement, he offends me, and what should I do? I’m in a real quandary, and the pastor says, well, you know, you could do this, that the other thing. But probably the best thing you do is just not to be offended, you know, and we’re actually in control, by and large, of whether or not we do take offense to something.

So just. But the idea that we are in direct control to the amount of forgiveness we receive and the amount of mercy we receive, since he puts it in our control, that should be the first thing in our mind, that if I withhold mercy or forgiveness or anything, then the Lord will withhold it from me, and that’s why he says, if from your heart you do not forgive, neither will your Father in heaven forgive you. So that’s probably the next level, I guess, over. Very good point.

I’ve got down here in my notes, as we know, the Lord’s prayers. You brought it up. Jesus will say a lot of stuff and then wait for the. The disciples to come and talk to him. But in this particular case, as you read through that scripture, the very next one, he goes, hey, just in case you didn’t get it before, you even ask for.

If you forgive others their trespasses, your father will forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will the Father forgive you. He was very blunt, very direct, and that’s saying something, considering his style. Brother Vivian, I saw your hand. Actually had a hand online from brother Julius Panucci.

Nice.

Brethren. Am I allowed to say hello to you folks? Not at all. No, I’m just kidding. Go for it.

Thank you so much. I didn’t shave yet, so forgive my. My big eyes shaven, but this is such a wonderful topic. The privilege of just saying hello to you, saying hello, and God bless you.

I’m brother Julius Panucci from Connecticut. You already know that, Brother Ben. Thank You, Brother Ben, first time I see you in a study. Are you. Are you a chip of Dad’s shoulder?

You know, like father, like son. What a wonderful privilege, Brother Ben, to see you involved in this study. No, you know, as I glean quickly from what is being said here, of all the benefits from forgiveness. Case in point, brethren. Case in point.

Wonderful. Joseph.

He became not only at peace, but he became wealthy in the right hand of Pharaoh. So that is such a, and then, you know, one more Scripture. Proverbs 20:11, 25. Proverbs 11:25.

The liberal. The liberal soul shall be made fat. Liberality. Our harmony. Father rewards rewards with health.

What a beautiful reference Brother David gave about how it is a healthier life, a peaceful life. So I’m sure this has all been said, but I just wanted to say hello to you. Thank you so much. God bless. Thank you very much, Brother Julius.

I’ve got brother Keith and then my mom. Oh, I didn’t see your hand back over there. I’ll get you next. Well, I was sitting here thinking about what you were saying. You know, forgive means before give.

You know that for is prior to, and it’s part of the word give. So it’s before give. So the point I wanted to make, though, is, you know, the Bible talks about us as being vessels, you know, especially leaky vessels. But that means we have a capacity to hold things, and we have these issues that happen in our life, and if we keep packing them in our vessel, we’re going to overload it, and, you know, like when Paul, when they were in the ship in the storm, they were tossing out their food, that block and tackle, the good things were getting thrown out along with some of the other things that weren’t necessary.

Whereas if we are diligent and unpack those things and give them back or take them out of our vessel, we’re leaving the capacity for us to plan our life and how we deal with things. But if we just take it on. When I was a manager, I used to call them monkeys because I don’t think it just sits there inert. They’re climbing around, they’re pulling on your ears, pulling on your nose, covering your eyes, and all of us have these monkeys in our lives.

We have to manage. We carry them around. Don’t take on other people’s monkeys because it’ll overcharge you. The pastor calls it overcharging. It’ll weigh you down and.

And then, you know, you can barely stand. You’re carrying all these monkeys. These are easy monkeys. To get rid of. There’s some that we have to.

You know, we’re going to have trials and tribulations of our own. Don’t take on trials and tribulations God didn’t intend for you to have to go through, and so if you think of it that way, that each one of these things that you don’t forgive creates an encumbrance upon you emotionally, physically, spiritually. You want to reduce those encumbrances as much as possible. We talk about not being in debt and trying to live our life debt free.

Well, why wouldn’t we do it spiritually?

Very good, Mom, and then Sister Robin, in the previous study, I talked about potatoes and eggs. Now I’m going to talk about brushing your teeth.

Forgiving is a habit we get into. The more often we do it, the easier it is to remember to do it, like brushing our teeth. But what happens if we don’t brush our teeth? If we don’t forgive, Cavities develop, and at that point, we need to go to the biggest forgiver of all in the scriptures to go ahead and get those cavities removed.

And hopefully that’ll help us remember we need to brush our teeth daily.

Nice. Thanks.

This is Robin.

One thing I like to throw out for discussion. In much of my Christian walk, I thought that forgiveness needed to be asked for in order to be given, and later on, I discovered that that’s not the case. That, as you mentioned, forgiveness is a choice, and we can make it whether or not the offender has asked for forgiveness. Forgiveness.

And I just wanted to throw that question out there about the requiring a request for forgiveness before forgiving. Over. All right, Brother Austin. I saw your hand up back there. Ellison.

Do you have something to say?

Second Corinthians. Speak up. Second Corinthians 5, verse 20. It’s about. We are Christ’s ambassadors.

We’re supposed to represent God’s kingdom, and God forgives us with the kingdom. Very good. Thank you. All right.

In Romans, chapter 12, verse 20 and 21, it speaks here about doing kindness to those that do evil to you. However, that kindness is also a form of forgiveness, if you think about it.

Because you cannot do kind to others if you do not forgive them. However, I guess you can. I don’t know how to look at that. I personally, I don’t think I can do kindness to others without forgiving them first. But here it says, let me find the start of the verse.

On the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him something to Drink. In doing so, you will heap burning coals on his head.

Let’s take for instance, that we are the enemy of someone. Instead, if we have done wrong to somebody and they intend instead do kindness to us, do we not feel guilty and we end up having what feels like heated coals on our head and shoulders? I’m doing this out of a study that a discourse that brother Tim Alexander did actually at a New Year’s convention. He talked about this as well as the rich man and Lazarus, and of course we know that story as well and how the rich man felt like he had fire on him that could not be extinguished.

When we forgive somebody, we also give them droplets of water that help them hopefully bridge the gap that is between them and those they have they have wronged.

Very, very good this. I think it’s a good segue into our next section and section 3 and 4 almost go, go hand in hand here. But if we can move on to some of these other ones, trust me, there’ll be plenty of time at the end here for some more comments, and I’m sure that they will be applicable to continued on the sections that we’re going to get into.

In question number three, we’ve got the scriptures on a couple parables, all right? One is the unforgiving servants, and the other one here is on the parable of the Prodigal Son in the unforgiving servant. The context for that is that Peter asks Jesus about forgiving the seven times and he responds back 77 times or seven times 70. You can do the math. But that’s missing the point.

The point was, is that it was an aspect of unforgiving or I’m sorry, unlimited forgiveness.

And what that means is, and I think the idea I had here is that for any of you who have children, sometimes they do the same thing over and over and over again, and of course you forgive them, but the idea isn’t that you forgive them each time they do it because you know they’re about to do it again. The forgiving is like a pre forgiveness. I know you’re going to do this again and I already forgive you for that. I’m not even going to have a reaction that would dictate that I have to do some sort of forgiveness because that’s the level of forgiveness that God gives to us.

It’s no surprise he knows we’re going to sin. He has already forgiven you for that. It’s not even something that is a concern there. The idea of 70 times 7 or 77 times 7, however you want to put it, is that we should already be in that mode of forgiveness towards others. There was a book that was suggested in our class to read and it’s called Go back into my notes here Unoffendable.

There’s an audiobook. It’s only about four hours and some odd minutes long to listen to, but I would convey that one on because I think it is pertinent in this particular sub.

The overall lessons for the parables, they emphasize that God’s forgiveness is the foundation and motivation for our forgiveness to others.

These illustrate radical forgiveness and the dangers of withholding forgiveness.

If you have any comments on this, this is it. Otherwise we will move on to section four. Sister Kathy, was your comment have anything to do with this on the parables and the particulars of the forms of forgiveness? Unprodigal son. Yeah.

Or the unforgiving servant, the one that forgive them 70 times 7. Or that one. Doesn’t it say in turn again, showing repentance. But prodigal son, he said, I have sinned against the Father in heaven, and you.

He bows himself. He is asking forgiveness. He is, you know, so I think that what Robin was her question about that she thinks that you can just forgive carte blanche. No, I think that it does. Certainly is good to show that you are repentant anyway.

But with the prodigal son, he bows down twice on his way back to his father after spending it showing, and then the father, you know, forgives him and he kills the fatted calf. So I think. But I think the other one, and I don’t have it in front of me, says, and turns again. You forgive them all those times, every time they turn again.

So I think it’s required. Very good. I think with the prodigal son, we understand that he did ask for repentance, and the father, he didn’t even need it. He had already forgiven him as he saw him from a distance coming back, he said, go get my robe and go and kill a calf.

He’s back. But the interesting thing about that parable is the other character, the older brother. What was his attitude towards his brother’s return?

Was it joy? Oh, yeah. There was a bit more there, brother. Vivian, you got something on that? We have a hand online from Donna Mitchum Renfro.

Okay, thank you, brother. I think that we should remember I have a scripture, brother. Romans 5, 8, that God demonstrated his love toward us while we were still sinister. Christ died for to forgive. It’s part of love.

And we know God is love, not making Us, God, because I know we’re not, but that is who we’re imitating. So, first of all, to be able to forgive is not for the other person. It’s for us. But to be able to forgive shows a love and remembering. I try to remember when I get so upset, especially at my son, I was forgiven, and that we all make mistakes.

And I kind of do agree with Robin, though. You don’t have to come ask me to forgive when I know you’ve done wrong. You don’t have to ask me, but you do have to ask the Lord, but I’m going to forgive you so that I don’t get caught up and have that animosity towards you over.

Very good. Thank you very much for that comment, Sister Julia.

While thinking about the prodigal son, we see that the Father, he saw the results. He saw the humility, the crushed heart, the repentance, one that is ready to lower himself, to come back and ask for forgiveness. So he was rejoicing because he has retrieved his son, his son, now understand? And he can rejoice in that. You know, and we have in the scriptures that talks about there’s more joy in heaven for one sinner that repents than 99 that don’t need repentance.

The brother, he was stuck on the past.

And when the past is fixed, we don’t have to focus on the past. So that’s the problem when we decide to carry on. On a burden that doesn’t exist anymore. Very well put. Yeah.

The Father as represented in that one, I believe, is God, and he doesn’t wait for his son to come back, he runs to him, and the brother, on the other hand, he held this resentment and it burdened him and it stopped him from moving forward.

When we look at some of the Old Testament themes, you can see that God’s enduring love and his covenant of faithfulness and willingness to restore his people, and I’m referring back to Hosea’s portrayal of Israel as an unfaithful wife, yet God continued to love. This demonstrates the heart of a forgiving God, one who longs for reconciliation. That’s his desire. Brother Renan, I see you holding that microphone.

You have a comment, don’t you? Okay, so what gave it away? This.

You know, it’s interesting. This has been a topic of discussion with. I’ll say. I don’t want to call it two sides. I think it’s the same side, but one has a more liberal interpretation.

The other has a more conservative interpretation about forgiveness, and I’m sure if I asked Brother David over there or Brother Homer, was it going on back in the day when you were. I’m sure this has been a topic of discussion down throughout the gospel age on this matter of forgiveness, and so we don’t want to obviously lose the forest for the trees. The point of the study weekend is obvious that not just should we always be in, like, an attitude of forgiveness, that should be our default posture, that we desire to forgive if we are ever offended, because A, we love and we love him who forgave us so much, and B, you know, we want to be forgiven as well.

So we don’t want to be hypocrites. Because if there’s one thing that’s really spoken of very harshly in the Scriptures, both by God and Jesus, that’s hypocrisy. You know, the saying one thing and doing another. But there is a little bit of a struggle, like when you break out the microscope and you really start looking at these verses, and I’ll just read a couple of brief comments from the pastor.

One is, we cannot, however, and this has to do with the. Forgive them, for they know not what they do during Jesus crucifixion, he says. The passage says, we cannot, however, have any doubt that the words represented oh, I’m sorry, sorry. While doubtless of a forgiving spirit. We doubt that Jesus uttered these words because they are not found in the various manuscripts, etc.

These men were unrepentant, and repentance is essential to forgiveness. They lacked faith, and faith must precede forgiveness. The sacrificial work was not yet finished and there’s no evidence their sins were forgiven. Now, that said, we do have, of course, Stephen’s words, and we have these, you know, all these beautiful parables, whether it’s the unforgiving servant or prodigal son or whatnot. I think there’s a.

And this is how I kind of parse it just in my head, maybe it’s helpful, maybe it’s not. But there are two aspects to forgiveness. One is inside the household of God and the other is outside the household of God. The. Inside the household of God, we’re given additional instructions like Matthew 18.

If someone offends you, you know, go to them, let them know that they’ve offended you, because sometimes it’s legitimately we don’t know. I’ve had brethren come to me and say, hey, you know what you said? That was that really, and I was like, well, I had no idea, you know, was mortified, and I’m sure I’m not the only one that’s put my foot in my mouth more than once.

But that’s the idea behind. We shouldn’t give cause for offense amongst the Brotherhood or to anyone have a conscience void of offense toward God and man. But out in the world, I doubt Jesus, I doubt the Romans or the Jews that were complicit in Jesus. Or the same thing with Stephen, that they had any desire for forgiveness because they were resolute and what they were doing was, you know, that’s just what they did. So that it’s the same thing with us people out in the world that we have to do it.

So why do we have. When he says that, you know, love your enemies, pray for those that despitefully use you and persecute you and all these other things, they’re not your enemies and those who use you and persecute you aren’t looking for your forgiveness. They don’t care. They don’t want it because it’s, you know, they don’t look at what they’re doing as being worthy or necessitating forgiveness, and so we can, I think on the outside we have carte blanche.

We can do whatever we want on the inside that we have, you know, inside the household of faith, we do have much more detailed volume of information that were given by both the apostles and Jesus as to how to handle these matters interpersonally inside the household of faith. While outside I do see through various scriptures that we can basically like kind of, you know, what does God call it in the Old Testament? Winking the eye. You know, we can kind of just. So I don’t think it’s either or I do see that just to, I don’t know, just introducing a different thing that isn’t really in the spirit of the study, I don’t think, but just a possible reconciliation because there definitely are scriptures that seem to give both ideas that a repentance and a show and an act of repentance is required and B, that certain forgiveness has been just given carte blanche without any repentance on the offending side.

So, and how do we harmonize those two things? I think this is one possibility over who. Very good. I do want to move on to section four so that we can go to section five, which is the practical application.

And I think that there’s going to be a lot of comments on that one. Within section four, we talk about ultimate forgiveness and of course, Christ’s sacrifice.

We can read through these scriptures or you can read through these again on your own time. But the idea about this particular form of forgiveness within, this question of how God’s forgiveness ultimately made possible for us, our lives, and what this means.

Christ’s sacrifice shows how God forgives, but it’s not at the expense of justice. The penalty was paid by his Son.

God went to incredible lengths for forgiveness.

So should we.

And in saying that forgiveness is not the absence of justice, this doesn’t mean that there are no consequences, but it’s the perfect blend of mercy and justice, and we can see that that mix of love with justice is still in the forgiveness side of these things. In the Old Testament, forgiveness was done via sacrifices, and once Jesus came and did that ultimate sacrifice, that wasn’t necessary anymore, but there’s still something that was given for that, and it’s so serious.

That’s the reason why we take forgiveness so seriously as well.

Any quick comments on this one, Sister Robin? Just a general thought. Comment. Is it ever appropriate not to forgive? Can anyone think of any example where it would be appropriate not to forgive?

Because I can’t think of one. Over. Okay, Sister Julian.

The way I understand the Scriptures is that any sin against us, we can forgive because we learn to suffer wrong and we want to retrieve the sinners. But any sin against the Holy Spirit and against God, we are not allowed to forgive. But, you know, it was mentioned yesterday, you know, judgment is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord. It’s not for us to punish or give retribution for it, but to let God in due time to deal with it. So that’s the two aspects.

Okay. We’ve got a few. I’m going to start from the back and work my way forward. Sir. Kathy.

Is it controversial, but in my thought, Judas is one that is not forgiven. He was with the Lord all the time. He’s the son of perdition. They took his bishopric from him, and so.

And I just would say that would be an unforgivable thing. But other than that, I can’t think of anybody either. Sure, there’s probably some, but the Lord would know. Well, and Paul turns them over to Satan so that their body, they’re. They’re saved, you know, because they have to repent of some.

I forgot the two. Two that he turned over. But that doesn’t mean they’re lost forever. But I’m of the opinion that Judas might be okay there, Austin.

So I’m. I’m also looking ahead here, but I need a little bit of clarification on how to reconcile forgiveness and justice and setting boundaries, because I need to understand that more. I don’t quite understand, because forgiveness to me is a form of justification, but at the same time it’s not. So I just need someone to explain that to me a little bit better. Don’t worry, we’ll get to that in section five on the back side of our handout.

You’ll be fine. Then I see dad and then Brother Keith.

I appreciated Brother Brendan’s thought that the standard to which we hold one another to is a little bit standard for the world, which is so ignorant. As has already been mentioned, Stephen said of those that were killing him, forgive them. They know not what they do. There was no repentance there. But what Stephen said is that you guys don’t know what you’re doing.

You’re totally ignorant. So I’m going to forgive you, and we always have personally that right to forgive within our brotherhood, though, I think it’s a little bit different. I think there can be cases where if we forgive without repentance, we are encouraging something else. It’s not necessarily loving.

I mean, going back to that scripture in Luke 17, 3, 4, take heed to yourselves. If thy brother sin, rebuke him, and if he repent, forgive him, and if he sin against thee seven times in the day and seven times again in turn, comes to thee, saying, I repent, thou shalt forgive him. In both cases, Jesus is saying, if you repent to forgive, the implication is clear. If he doesn’t repent, then you’re not under an obligation to forgive him.

Now you can choose to forgive him, but out of love, you ask, well, what is that going to do something do for him? Richard Serrasi, many years ago gave an explanation or gave an illustration. He says, if you’re in the parking lot going to a convention and a brother hits your car with his car and dents it up, and he comes in and he says, hey, I hit your fender. But you know, I didn’t mean to.

But you’re my brother. You’ll forgive me. Well, is he under obligation to forgive that? Especially if the brother doesn’t offer to correct the problem.

Also, another case that we can take is where our brethren may be involved in gross sin of some kind. Do we forgive them if they say, I repent? Yes, but we treat them maybe a little bit differently. If somebody stole $100,000 from you, says, I’m sorry, you know, and repents and restores it, but, you know, would you put him in charge of money again? You know, maybe you wouldn’t, because perhaps there’s a Weakness of the flesh there.

You don’t want to expose it. Just a couple of references so that I don’t go too long. There’s several references because Brother Russell treats this question, is it ever appropriate not to forgive? And how important is repentance? 3 reprint articles reprint 2023.

2023. Reprint 4978, and the title of that reprint article is when forgiveness is proper. Reprint 4978, and lastly, reprint 5939.

The title of that is Confession of sin precedes forgiveness. Reprint 5939, and the pastor goes into some of these sticky details a little bit more there. Over.

All right. Gabriela. Oh, wait, Am I missing something?

What?

Oh, Brother Keith, sorry. Gotta check my notes here. Well, my thoughts on the discussion. It’s not our job to bring justice. It’s God’s job to bring justice.

And in his forethought, he balanced justice and love and provide forgiveness, and the thing is, it’s the willingness to be able, the willingness to forgive someone if they never asked for it. That doesn’t mean that you didn’t have the willingness to. But on the difficult situations that you described, you know, when I think about the comment in the scriptures about heaping the coals on them, where did those coals come from? They come from the brazen altar.

They come from our sin offering. We’re not heaping coals of condemnation or judgment upon them. We’re heaping coals of our sacrifice that we made that allows us to forgive them, that gives us, and hopefully in the future that will come to remembrance to them, and it will be the fire that causes them in the millennial kingdom to come to the same offering that we had made in the gospel age. Very good, Gabriella.

Yeah, I just wanted to address the forgiving without repenting part of the discussion.

I think ultimately, speaking in the plan of God, there will be repentance, obviously, like you’ve walked up the highway of holiness or whatever, and then in the peaceable kingdom, like, everyone will be forgiven, everyone will have repented, everybody will be made holy, and whether one comes first or the other is kind of up to God, but both will happen. For us, though, I think the requirement is to forgive, and the repentance part isn’t really our business. I mean, it would be great, right, for there to always be repentance.

But what we were discussing at the beginning, like what forgiveness even is, in a way, it almost doesn’t even it’s not even related to the other Person. It’s about ourselves and our own heart condition and how we either are viewing that person or whatever. It is a release of our own resentment to prevent further sin from taking hold in our heart, and like from the Lord’s Prayer, it’s a requirement. It’s not the Lord’s Prayer didn’t have any like, but, you know, if they didn’t repent, you’re fine.

And then to just kind of comment on the Scripture brother David brought up, you know, if he repents, forgive him. If someone comes to you and repents, like, you have nothing left against them. If you are going to now harbor unforgiveness against someone who has already repented, that’s like a new sin against that brother, and now you’re the one in the wrong who needs to then go get forgiveness, right? So it’s like you’re starting a whole other thing.

So I think that’s maybe what’s being addressed there. Like, if he repents, like, duh, you should forgive him. But I don’t think that is meant to even imply that if he doesn’t repent, you don’t have to forgive him. Because the. I think it is possible for sure to forgive without that repentance happening.

And I think it’s important because if we are using that as like our excuse, well, they didn’t repent. Like, you’re just opening it up for harboring all kinds of unforgiveness in your heart. Not that that’s easy in any way. Like, the Bible is full of like, forgive, forgive, forgive me, and I’m like, great, I should do that.

But it doesn’t really tell me how, and so that’s my struggle. So I’m excited for the comments on section five, but I do think that the Scriptures do tell us that we really should forgive whether or not there is repentance, especially in our own interactions. You know, like, we can look hypothetically at different scenarios, but when it comes down to our own interactions and what’s going on in our lives, I think we do. It’s very important for us to figure out how to genuinely forgive those who sin against us.

Very good. I do want to move on to section five, because if you look at your clocks, you can see that for practical application, we’ve got less than 30 minutes left. But I do want to comment a little bit on the sins that don’t require forgiveness or a sin against the Holy Spirit. Within this lesson, we are talking about sins against you personally. A sin against the Holy Spirit is not a Sin against you personally.

The only way that you can judge if there’s a sin against the Holy Spirit is if you are God. That’s his, that is his alone. We cannot judge others based upon that. We don’t know their heart condition. We do not know their life experiences.

We don’t know the things that were going on in their head. We cannot possibly judge that. That’s a really slippery, tricky road. If you start going down on that one to think, well, that person sinned against the Holy Spirit and now that’s it, they’re done. That’s reserved for God.

We’ll find out later and it will be whatever he chooses. Moving on to section five, living a life of forgiveness and practical application. This, this is the one where I really want your comments on this. We want to look at the practical steps we can take to cultivate a forgiving heart and to extend forgiveness in challenging situations.

Let’s start. Brother Austin, you have some.

After rattling my mind and actually also hearing comments, plenty of comments, I’ve come to figure it out for myself. It is as a criminal who does an offense towards you, you can forgive them. However, there is still justice in the courts that need to be done. It’s not our job to deliver deliver that justice. The courts will do that, or in our case, God will do that.

He will dish out justice as he sees fit. However, to simplify it even more so in the form of setting boundaries, lets say you have a cat and you pet your cat. Then you know your cat can get very excited and that cat might turn and bite you. That can be a lesson to yourself. You might forgive that cat, you might still love that cat.

And so because you have forgiven that cat and love that cat, you still want to love on it, but you’re not going to continue petting it the next time that it gets riled up. Because you know what’s going to happen? That cat’s going to turn and be bite you again and you can’t stop that. So that’s a good example of setting boundaries. Absolutely.

Setting boundaries is really key. If you’re opening yourself right up back into something else. Shame on you, and one more thing on the the ultimate sin, as Jesus calls it, it’s in the place where Jesus, where the Pharisees call Jesus Beelzebub casting out demons. He says anybody who commits a sin against the Holy Spirit, he’s being very gentle with us explaining what that is.

They forfeit their life in this life and the next. So I don’t think anybody that commits Us, a crime against the Holy Spirit will be around very long because they’ve already forfeited their life in this life. So like you said, it is up to God, and honestly, it’d probably be gone very quickly.

Again, that’s doesn’t say that we’re set to judge those in those kind of regards when you have that kind of a sin. I think the scriptures do talk about where you could go, right? And I think an illustration of this is that if you take your kids hiking up a mountain, you know, if they get close to that edge, they could fall over, they could die. Does this mean that if you take your kids hiking, one of them is going to die?

No, but if you get close to that edge, you could fall over and they would die. This is what God is saying. It doesn’t mean that they will. It’s just if this happens, this could happen.

It’s not a guarantee anyway. All the way in the very back.

Sorry, we’re moving on pretty quick here. No.

All right. Brother Brendan, I like the. Because this is the crux of the matter. Living a life of forgiveness.

Ideally, we should get every instance right every time. But sometimes, you know, I’ll say most of the time we’re going to struggle with various things. I really like the. I don’t see it included here. I like the.

This thought that you have in the fifth bullet point. What are some appropriate ways of seeking reconciliation? And forgiveness seems to be like the very. Almost the first step in reconciliation seems to be a much deeper process or, you know, restorative process, whatever the case is. Because, you know, let’s look at it.

Let’s really bring it down to the most practical. I think when we talk about sins against other brethren, especially in the household of faith, because that’s who we’re really concerned with most. We tend to think of them in the sense of, oh, well, you know, you stepped on a spiritual corn, my foot, and I’ve asked forgiveness and you’ve given it. It’s kind of like relatively minor offenses, but there are some pretty major issues going on, whether it’s between married couples in the Lord, where trust has been violated and where that sting or that hurt isn’t something you can just wave a magic wand and make it go away.

And then, I mean, I’m going to pick on Gabriella for a moment, but it’s kind of like if we don’t forgive, then we’re the ones sinning, which I absolutely hold. I think that was a very good comment. I agree with it. But the Problem is, that’s really super easy to say, and then now, how if you’re caught up in something that has significant repercussions to it, let’s say that is.

Is much more problematic than how that kind of thing.

Those are the things I think that we have to learn to deal with in the here and now. The other thing I do like is there’s another thing, and I didn’t see it included in here, so we’ll bring it out. Maybe it is, and I just missed it. But this idea of we all love Matthew 5, if you have ought against your brother. But there’s another place where Jesus says, if you know your brother has a problem with you, something you did, and you’re trying to serve God, you know, in this case it was bring your offering to God.

He’s like, no, you put that down right in your spot and you go and be reconciled and then come back and offer your gift. So the implication is, if we know we’ve caused some issue or that some brother, brethren, sister, whatever, and I would probably extend it even outside of the household of faith, that if you know someone has a legitimate problem with you, that needs to be reconciled, that needs to be handled, that God is saying, you better not think about offering things to me right now. You need to go and fix this first, and then come back and finish up your offering, and so on both sides of this, not only should we have the attitude, you know, of trying to live a life of forgiveness, but we should also have an attitude of always trying to seek forgiveness for where we’ve caused offense and being careful to recognize that we have. Because I’ll just extend it to one more thing.

We can hurt each other.

Thinking we’re doing God a service. We might think we’re on the right side of a doctrinal issue or a chronological issue or a prophetic issue, and we’ll hold that out as a standard potentially of fellowship or of how we esteem our brethren, that brother right there, he doesn’t believe in. Therefore, I mean, just the mere thought of that introduces like, okay, I’m here, and this brother or sister or whatever is here, and you, you can’t, you know, it’s an inescapable conclusion. So how do we deal with these differences where we see brethren, and it could even take a, you know, a course of maybe a.

Someone who’s very close to you, but you differ on these things and that. That brother or sister may no longer want anything to do with you, you know, because based on that, so it’s like, so it’s more, potentially more nuanced, I guess you could say, and we can offend and do things in other areas. So again, how do we deal with. When you’re having a life of forgiveness is great, but if you are on the receiving end of very serious problem that violates a trust or something of other significance, or if that brother or sister is absolutely convinced that their position is right and they see no need for them to, they wouldn’t even think about repenting because they feel that they’re maybe standing up for righteousness sake or standing up for the truth’s sake or whatever.

The case is over. Very good comments. You know, along with your comments, I do want a thought exercise here.

I meant to put this thought exercise at the very beginning and got distracted from it. But I want you to think about any areas in your own heart where there is unforgiveness.

Just want you to think about that, and we’re going to come back to that at the very, very rapidly approaching end of this segment, and I do have some of those questions, Brother Brendan, that you had asked about. You know, if it’s someone who is close to you, like a spouse or someone who still believes that they are right.

So I, we can get to some of the answers on that. Brother Austin, I see you there, and then I’ll have Julianne and then Jeff and then no. Okay, and then brother kins, in that order in this lifetime.

I constantly like to simplify things for myself. It helps me understand. But once again, imagine two siblings fighting and one sibling is injured while they’re playing around, and then they don’t want to forgive their other sibling, and the father comes in and he says, you should forgive your sibling.

And the sibling says, why? Well, you still love your sibling, do you not? And the sibling will say, the child say, yes, I do, and you still want to get along with your sibling, do you not? And the child will say, yes, I do.

So why not forgive them if you still want to get along with them? And of course, the child should come around at that point and understand they need to forgive their sibling. But not everyone is. Not every child is so willing. But yeah, just, just my thoughts on that.

Okay, very good.

We remember the story of Abel and Cain and how God questioned Cain and he answered, am I my brother’s keeper? Well, the answer is yes, because God want us to care, and when. Well, just read From Ezekiel, chapter 3, verse 16:19 Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel. Whenever you Hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning from me.

If I say to the wicked, you shall surely die, and you give him no warning nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way in order to save his life, that wicked person shall die for his iniquity. But his blood I will require at your hand. But if you warn the wicked and he does not turn from his wicked wickedness or his wicked way, he shall die for his iniquity, but you will deliver your soul. So the principle I see here is that, you know, there’s one body, the body of Christ, and we are watchers. We care for one another.

If we see someone going the wrong way, we’ll tell him. But then does it require for us to tell him every day and be upset every day? No, we’ve done our job right. We warn him and then it’s up to him. So this is where our feelings cannot be offended because we didn’t convince.

But at least we’ve done what God wants us to do. Care, and then leave the matter to our Heavenly Father and maybe just keep our brother in prayer because our battle continue in prayer, because the desire of our Heavenly Father is as long as there’s life, there’s hope. We want to retrieve our brother. Thank you. Very good.

Yeah, that. It goes in hand with that spirit of gentleness for sure. Coming all the way up to the front.

I like the proverbs 19:11 you had. It says, the discretion of a man deferreth his anger, and it is his glory to pass over a transgression, and you thought about, you know, you say in here, in your bullet point, that good sense makes it slow, makes one slow to anger, and it’s glory, and that word glory means beauty.

And it is to his beauty to overlook an offense, and then you say, forgiveness is a conscience act of the will. That means I can either decide to forgive or not to forgive, and that is not the emotion. The emotion is what is produced by what I do.

Do I forgive or do I not forgive? Well, if I forgive, then I do believe that I’m going to have peace in my heart. It doesn’t mean it’s not about setting boundaries. Of course we set boundaries, you know, and there’s different ways with people who repent and all of that. But it’s a matter of what do I do?

Because then you get to the point of the emotion. The heart is the emotion. The mind is this thing that always runs, and the program that I have but getting to the heart is, how do I feel? About it.

And if I don’t forgive, what I tend to do is have a resentment, and we brought this up again, and I talked about a resentment. There was another thought on it that I think if I don’t forgive and I choose not to forgive and I’m harboring a resentment, I’m taking poison, trying to kill somebody else is the way I look at it. So if I can forgive in my heart, a person, then I don’t have to keep doing that, and I wanted to suggest, as we were talking about forgiveness, Brother Tom Gilbert has a discourse, and it’s called.

It’s unforgivable. Powerful. Very good. Thank you, Gabriella.

Yeah, I just wanted to sort of respond to Austin’s comment about the two kids fighting, because that’s a great illustration. It’s a little oversimplified, but sometimes these beautiful girls that have been just so well behaved this whole weekend that everyone here thinks are adorable, sometimes they do exactly what Austin said, and best case scenario, it ends the way he describes it. But sometimes I might say, don’t you love your sister? And instead of, oh, gosh, yeah, you’re right. I love her.

I’m gonna forgive her. I might get something like, no, I hate her. I never want to play with her again.

So.

But, you know, every single time, probably max, 20 minutes later, they’re all happy. They’ve forgotten the whole thing. They are playing together. Okay? So every time, it still works out.

They do, in fact, love each other. But in that moment, it is very real for that child. They genuinely think that they hate this person, that they never want to see them again, they never want to talk to them again, but they don’t know what that means. But the emotion is very real, and so to apply that to us, because when that happens, I kind of roll my eyes and I’m like, seriously?

But I do the same thing. When I get angry at a person, I am very angry, and then once I’ve calmed down and can think rationally about what happened or whatever, things can be resolved, and for example, in a marriage situation, like, if you’re arguing, nothing will be resolved. But if you pause and both people can calm down and then have an actual conversation about it afterwards, which is important, calming down and forgetting about it and pretending it never happened is not it.

But calming down and being able to talk about it, then you can have actual resolution. So to apply it to forgiveness for our brethren, because we’re all children, like my kids, who fight when we’re in that emotional space, that’s when we need to take that pause that we’ve mentioned in a few other studies to not be reactive, and I’ve heard it as respond, don’t react, or taking that moment to decide if you want to let that reaction out, because you know, 99% of the time, you probably shouldn’t.

As a practical step, it might be good to first step away, deal with your emotion of it, which is probably valid, but, you know, you need to figure that out and then go address the situation as a practical application. I think I had another one. Oh, I just wanted to echo something that someone else said. I don’t think it was even in this one. I think it was in Brother Jeff’s about getting to know your brethren, which is really hard because if it’s somebody that gets on your nerves, you don’t really want to spend more time with them.

But when you do and you get to know them just as an individual, get to know their family, they become more real and more. I don’t know, it’s maybe easier to forgive them or to see them as a whole person instead of just that one piece that was getting on your nerves or was offensive.

Very good. Really appreciate that, as always. Brother Brendan, just a quick comment, and this isn’t meant to excuse getting it wrong, but in the. I’ll say the grand scheme of things, since we’re all kind of still learning, even if we’ve been at this for decades, that, and I want to be careful how I say this, because it’s not a.

It’s not a get out of jail free card, as it were, but it’s better for us to mistakenly forgive someone who doesn’t deserve it than to not forgive someone who does. So that’s why I like living a life of forgiveness, that that’s our default position. We always forgive. We can get it wrong and we should strive to get it right. But I think there’s more grace, if you want to call it that, for those of us who might, or, you know, if we have a more mistaken but liberal application, as long as we’re seeking to get it right, I guess I’ll say is the biggest one.

So, again, it’s a little bit of a tricky thing, but just leave it there.

Very good. We’ve got a couple things here that we’ve talked about in the practical application side of it. Some of the things I don’t have written down on that card there, like leaning on God, forgiveness, especially for deep wounds, that’s really hard to do, and Philippians 4, 6, 7, reminds us that you bring those anxieties and those hurts to go God in prayer and he will give us strength and peace to forgive.

There’s a cycle of forgiveness as well. All right, Forgiveness might be a one time decision, one time thing, but in that process of healing and releasing bitterness, it can be ongoing. So there’s an aspect of patience with yourself that has to be included, and you have to recognize your own forgiveness that starts by regularly reflecting on the depths of God. God’s forgiveness to us.

The more we understand of his grace, the easier it is to extend that to others.

We’re going to have a couple more things that are passed out, and while those things are happening, while those things are happening, Brother Austin, I’m going to have you give your comment now. So just to zoom out and look at the broader picture of why we, why it’s highly important, especially for the brethren and for the church to understand forgiveness more than anyone else is what is the purpose of the kingdom? And when we understand forgiveness, we also understand the purpose of the kingdom and the works that will be in it as well.

Excellent point. You know, a big part of forgiveness really resides on your perspective and your attitude, your thoughts towards another person. Forgiving them, you know, means releasing that person from the payment that you feel they owe you for a wrong. It means no longer continually bringing it up.

It means you also acknowledge when it does hurt you, you don’t pretend it doesn’t. Pretending it doesn’t solve anything. That’s burying it, denying that it ever did anything. That’s not a real forgiveness. Acknowledging it and then choosing to let that aspect go, that means you’re not going to hold on to that bitterness anymore.

And that’s very, very freeing. Now there’s two things that you have received. You’ve received a blue sheet of paper that’s got double sided. This is additional resources that I know we would never have been able to get to in this particular study, and the second one, there is a note card.

It’s blank.

I asked you a simple question way too late in this study, and that was to identify areas of unforgiveness in your own heart. I want you to write it down. I want you to keep this note card, put it in your Bible and every time you come to it, pray, keep a hold of that and you’ll get it resolved.

Did everyone get one of these? Excellent. You know, forgiveness is at the heart of our faith. It flows from God’s character through Christ’s sacrifice, and it’s extending to all of our relationships with one another with our spouse. Everyone you meet.

Forgiveness is not easy, but it is liberating and it is mandated, and ultimately, it’s a reflection on the incredible grace that we have received. We have to strive to be people who are quick to forgive, people who are patient with others, people who are slow to anger, just as our Father is all of those things to us.

That’s it.

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