How Do I Forgive Someone Who Hurt Me? (And What Forgiveness Is Really For)

 

Most of us have thought that we have forgiven someone, only to learn later on that we have not truly forgiven.

If you are like me, then God has shown you throughout your life different parts of what forgiveness really means.

What I am about to say will be the same experience again for many of you.

 

If my wife sins against me, and I forgive her, then I have to be the one to give.

Say that we just got in a conflict, and she was in the wrong:

She apologizes.

Now, I have to be the one to initiate:

A kiss.

Sex.

Or giving love of any kind:

“If anyone has caused pain, he has caused pain not so much to me but to some degree—not to exaggerate—to all of you. The punishment inflicted by the majority is sufficient for that person. As a result, you should instead forgive and comfort him. Otherwise, this one may be overwhelmed by excessive grief. Therefore I urge you to reaffirm your love to him. I wrote for this purpose: to test your character to see if you are obedient in everything. If you forgive anyone, I do too. For what I have forgiven—if I have forgiven anything—it is for you in the presence of Christ (2 Corinthians 2:5-10).”

Why must I give? Because I have to show my wife that I really do forgive her.

Otherwise, I am fooled into fake love by Satan (2 Corinthians 2:11, in the context of verses 5-10) –because she is earning my love back, whether by:

Her having to show affection first.

Or by me making her suffer by giving her the silent treatment.

Not only that, but that is how I must treat her even if she does not repent:

“‘You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I tell you, don’t resist an evildoer. On the contrary, if anyone slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. As for the one who wants to sue you and take away your shirt, let him have your coat as well. And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two. Give to the one who asks you, and don’t turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

“‘You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. For He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward will you have? Don’t even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing out of the ordinary? Don’t even the Gentiles do the same (Matthew 5:38-47)?’”

If I tell myself that I don't “have to” do something for my wife to prove that I have forgiven her, that is proof that I actually should do that –just as I would treat her on the day that I was most excited to love her.

This is how God loved us:

Not only did He forgive us, but He gave, and without limit (Romans 8:32).

It’s one thing to spare sinners from Hell. But to give them Heaven?

Many of us have the wrong definition of mercy. 

“Mercy,” as the Bible uses the word, doesn’t stop at not giving someone the punishment that they deserve. In fact, it doesn’t always necessarily have to be a direct response to sin (Luke 18:38) –and this is how mercy is walked out most of the time in our daily lives (Matthew 7:12).

Mercy goes on to give after forgiving, and it gives even when sin is not involved –just because there is an opportunity to give. It gives the maximum.  The only thing that limits this giving is how much someone is willing to accept (Psalm 81:16). This is the mercy that God expects us to have on others.

English translations of the Bible sometimes translate “mercy” as “compassion.”

(HCSB) “But the Lord was gracious to them, had compassion on them, and turned toward them (2 Kings 13:23).”

(NLT) “But the Lord was gracious and merciful to the people of Israel.”

(HCSB) “If you do what is good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that…. Be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful (Luke 6:33, 36).”

(NLT) “You must be compassionate, just as your Father is compassionate.”

Compassion is warmth that drives you into action.

God does not just feel compassion for the wicked, He acts on it, and He commands us to do the same.

God demands that we find warmth in us –and not only to feel it, but to act on it.

Forgiveness is not for you. Although yes, it does heal your spirit from sickness. 

But that sickness is designed by God to drive you closer to your offender.

We have often let that sickness drive us away from our offenders, but God, desperate for us, recognized that we were more than worth the pain.

If you are going to say that you belong to God, then you are like Him. That means that you too must recognize that your offenders are more than worth the pain of loving them –while they hate, mistreat, or neglect you –just as God loves us when we hate, mistreat, and neglect Him.

Forgiveness is a giving act of genuine compassion. Forgiveness is for the person that you are forgiving, as God’s forgiveness is for us.

Love always gives, but it has to give when it forgives.

 

Trust in its Different Forms

BELIEVERS LOVING NONBELIEVERS: THE BELIEVER EXTENDS HIS/HER TRUST TO GOD TO WORK IN THE LIFE OF THE NONBELIEVER WITHOUT NEED FOR CONFRONTATION PAST THE INITIAL SHARING OF THE GOSPEL. TRUSTING GOD TO FULFILL THEIR NEEDS, HE/SHE CAN UNWAVERINGLY FULFILL THE NONBELIEVER’S NEEDS BY LOVE.

This is the situation that a lot of believers find themselves in with most people:

Either this person in your life is not a believer, or they refuse to listen.

If you have already followed all of the steps which I am about to tell you, you should not keep confronting them. After Jesus teaches us to get the speck out of our believing brother’s eye, He immediately warns us not to even attempt at the speck in an unrepentant person’s eye:

“Don’t give what is holy to dogs or toss your pearls before pigs, or they will trample them with their feet, turn, and tear you to pieces (Matthew 7:6).”

Expect them to disappoint you, until they repent.  

All that you can and should do is happily love them givingly (1 Peter 3:1),  and giving the most that you can, without counting.

This is a very hard thing to do, and I am very thankful that I have never had to live like this with my wife for more than a night. I know people who have done it for decades.

Still, the other situation can also be very hard:

Trusting your believing brother/sister who has repented.

None of us want to be hurt again.

It can be hard to trust even if your spouse hasn’t done anything wrong, but it can be especially hard if:

They said that they would stop before and haven't.

They did something extra hurtful or evil.

They have been doing the same thing for a long time.

(BELIEVER & BELIEVER) SITUATION 1: YOU EXTEND TRUST DIRECTLY TO ANOTHER BELIEVER. YOUR TRUST IS FULFILLED BY THEIR LOVE, AND THEIR TRUST IS FULFILLED BY YOUR LOVE.

This is the ideal situation with you and a believing brother.

At best, this situation is nothing less than a real-life fairytale. You would cross an ocean just to make the other person smile, and you know that they would do the same for you.

At worst, this situation is an extremely painful fight of faith. 

There have been times where, sometimes even with no evidence, I have felt so strongly that Kelsey does not/will not love me the way that I would like her to. 

I have had to hang on to nothing but a blind faith that she is not sinning when all of the evidence points to something else –or my emotions are piled on top of me like elephants, trying to convince me that she is doing something wrong.

And after persevering, I learned (sometimes through much effort in a conversation) that she was actually cherishing me in her heart, and she did come through.

It doesn’t matter whether trusting is easy or hard to you. What matters is that you trust. That’s what keeps first love alive.

SITUATION 2: YOU DO NOT EXTEND TRUST DIRECTLY TO ANOTHER BELIEVER, RESULTING IN SIN BY YOU SERVING THEM OUT OF OBLIGATION. YOU COULD NOT KNOW IF THEY WOULD BE HAPPY TO LOVE YOU BECAUSE YOU NEVER STEPPED OUT. 

This is the log and the speck situation.

“Trust” means a few things here:

Speak up when you have a want or need, no matter how life-changingly big, how small and petty, or how many.

Speak up when you are upset or concerned about something that your spouse said or did.

Assume that they are doing the best thing when you are not looking (2 Thessalonians 3:4).

SITUATION 3: ANOTHER BELIEVER BREAKS YOUR TRUST AND SO SIN AGAINST YOU. YOU EXTEND TRUST TO THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THAT BELIEVER BY CONFRONTING THEM. YOUR TRUST IS FULFILLED WHEN THEY REPENT, AND THEIR NEEDS ARE  FULFILLED BY YOUR LOVE WHICH HAS NOT WAVERED.

If they do break your trust or sin without knowing it, then you confront them:

You trust that the Holy Spirit will win them over (Philippians 2:12). In other words, assume that their heart is soft: Trust that your words will be all that it takes for them to repent.

Now, I have this listed as one step, but Jesus divides this step into three:

1. “If your brother sins against you, go and rebuke him in private. If he listens to you, you have won your brother.

2. “But if he won’t listen, take one or two more with you, so that by the testimony of two or three witnesses every fact may be established.

3. “If he pays no attention to them, tell the church (Matthew 18:15-17a).”

I have actually had to walk through this process myself a couple of times. 

I had to initiate it, but through seeking good conflict with my Christian brothers, I actually ended up finding out that I was in the wrong once –which is still a win for me! 

Because I became more unified with my brother.

SITUATION 4: ANOTHER BELIEVER REFUSES TO LISTEN WHEN YOU FOLLOW JESUS’ STEPS OF CONFRONTATION. YOU EXTEND TRUST TO THE HOLY SPIRIT TO WORK IN THAT PERSON’S LIFE WITHOUT FURTHER CONFRONTATION. THEIR NEEDS ARE FULFILLED BY YOUR UNWAVERING LOVE.

If confrontation doesn’t work, then Jesus gives us one final step:

“But if he doesn’t pay attention even to the church, let him be like an unbeliever and a tax collector to you (Matthew 18:17b).”

At this point, we are done trying to convince their brother. We leave God to do the work in his life, without us (1 Corinthians 5, Mark 4:26-32).

Treating someone like a nonbeliever means to love them, but not to trust them. They have shown that they will not listen.

This means that we put up boundaries. But godly boundaries are not for pushing people away –they are gloves that allow us to get as close as possible without getting pricked. God knows your heart and will not excuse you for pushing people away or giving up on them.

Also, we do not endorse flagrant sinners as Christians –since someone who claims to be a believer but acts like a nonbeliever is poisonous to the souls of all believers and nonbelievers who they come into contact with. If they are outspoken Christians, we kick them out of the church, until they repent.

When it comes to your spouse, treating them like a nonbeliever does not mean divorcing them or kicking them out of your house:

“I command the married—not I, but the Lord—a wife is not to leave her husband. But if she does leave, she must remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband—and a husband is not to leave his wife. But I (not the Lord) say to the rest: If any brother has an unbelieving wife and she is willing to live with him, he must not leave her. Also, if any woman has an unbelieving husband and he is willing to live with her, she must not leave her husband. For the unbelieving husband is set apart for God by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is set apart for God by the husband. Otherwise your children would be corrupt, but now they are set apart for God. But if the unbeliever leaves, let him leave. A brother or a sister is not bound in such cases. God has called you to live in peace. For you, wife, how do you know whether you will save your husband? Or you, husband, how do you know whether you will save your wife (1 Corinthians 7:10-16)?”

And again:

“Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands so that, even if some disobey the Christian message, they may be won over without a message by the way their wives live when they observe your pure, reverent lives (1 Peter 3:1-2).”

SITUATION 5: ANOTHER BELIEVER BREAKS YOUR TRUST BY SINNING AGAINST YOU, BUT INSTEAD OF CONFRONTING THEM, YOU PUT UP WALLS. YOU COULD NOT HAVE KNOWN IF THEY WOULD HAVE LISTENED. YOU FORCE YOURSELF TO SERVE THEM OUT OF OBLIGATION.

You cannot skip all of the steps of confrontation and “just rely on God alone.”

If I need to confront my wife, I cannot love her until I genuinely decide to confront her when I get the chance. 

Otherwise, I can only serve her grudgingly. There is no way around it: 

That is how God designed love; to draw us closer to one another.

I cannot muscle myself into loving her when love demands that now is the time to be loved by her.

Yes, I can love her if she is treating me badly. 

Yes, if she suddenly becomes unable to move or speak, God will even give me the power to serve her for the rest of my life, without being served myself.

But when love means speaking up, you can go no further until you speak up.

Not only is not speaking up a sin (James 4:17), but it traps you in sin. 

Every “good” thing that you do becomes obligation –points gained to compare to points forfeited(Luke 10:40, Luke 15:29) –straw to be burned up on the Day of Judgement (1 Corinthians 3:12-15, Matthew 7:21-23).

SITUATION 6: ANOTHER BELIEVER HAS REFUSED TO LISTEN WHEN YOU HAVE WALKED OUT JESUS’ STEPS OF CONFRONTATION, BUT YOU CONTINUE TO TRY TO CONFRONT THEM, LEADING TO YOUR HEARTBREAK EVERY TIME. YOU FORCE YOURSELF TO MEET THEIR NEEDS OUT OF OBLIGATION.

That being said, if you already have walked through the steps of confrontation which you could, and they still haven’t repented, please follow Jesus’ instructions:

Treat them like a nonbeliever.

“For what business is it of mine to judge outsiders? Don’t you judge those who are inside? But God judges outsiders (1 Corinthians 5:12-13a).”

Continuing to confront your unrepentant spouse will lead to heartbreak every time. You are not God, and you are not going to convince them, no matter how perfect your evidence or argument is.

SITUATION 7: AFTER FOLLOWING JESUS’ STEPS OF CONFRONTATION, THEY DID NOT LISTEN. YOU DECIDE TO GIVE UP HOPE THAT THEY WILL ONE DAY REPENT. YOU FORCE YOURSELF TO MEET THEIR NEEDS OUT OF OBLIGATION.

That being said, trusting God and giving up are not the same thing.

You cannot let go of the hope that God will lead them to repentance.

If you do give up in your heart, then you will be unable to love your spouse.

Every “good” thing that you do becomes obligation –points gained to compare to points forfeited –straw to be burned up on the Day of Judgement. 

You will find that you only reach out to love them when you have to, and your definition of “have to” will get more and more narrow.

If Kelsey were to decide to stop giving me sex freely, for example, and I chose to give up on faith that God would one day change her heart, then:

All of the chores I do for her, flowers I buy her, and sacrifices that I make for her can only become points that I add up for myself to compare to her neglect of me. I can only do those things: 

resentfully, 

to shame her, 

to make myself feel like I am better than her, 

to make myself look better than her to my friends when I talk about her, 

or to pressure her into giving me sex.

But if I choose to trust that God will change her heart, looking forward to the reward of her freely-given love is more than enough to make me forget what loving her costs me.

Trust at each stage is required in order to truly love.

Apologies & Genuine Repentance

Trusting and forgiving someone means that you are leaving yourself vulnerable to maybe get hurt.

“What if they do it again?”

Well, you just have to trust that they won’t.

 

That being said, there are some apologies that you should not accept.

Not that an apology is always required for complete reconciliation (Genesis 45:5), but an apology lets the person that you are apologizing to know that they can trust you. Often, if you don’t apologize, others have a good reason not to trust you, and might not be wrong for withholding their trust.

It is wrong to bring up the past, making people pay for their sin with guilt. Letting someone know “how much they hurt you” is not as gratifying as it may seem.

But wanting a bold, humble apology is not the same thing. It is something that people should be able to expect from you, and you should not fault them for wanting it. It is not judgemental nor a form of punishment to talk with someone to be sure that they have actually repented (John 21:15-19).

Repentance is in the heart, so you can’t always tell whether it is real.

But, real repentance has some distinct (and rare) features:

1. It doesn’t make excuses. It takes all the blame.

If I apologize for saying something ugly to my wife “but I’m having a bad day” or “but you said something ugly to me first,” then I’m not really apologizing. 

Even if my wife does not repent at all, I still take full blame for my wrongs, even if what she did is worse than what I did.

If when I talk about my past sin, I am talking about the people that tempted me or made it hard for me not to sin, then I am blaming them for what I did.

2. It’s forthcoming about all of the bad.

If I hide anything that would make what I did look worse when apologizing, then I’m not really apologizing. I’m getting away with what I can.

3. It hates the sin.

If I brag or make jokes about my sin after apologizing –then I am not being sorry for it. My sin was not cute.

If I repent for sleeping with another woman, but I still compare sex with her to my own wife, or talk about what I liked about it, then my sin is still part of me. 

All of the pleasurable things that came from our sin, or the things that worldly people brag about, we count as shame –and thank God they were washed from us.

4. It doesn’t mind giving you assurance. In fact, it likes having assurance for itself.

Should I be offended if my wife wants to have my location on her phone? Does that mean that she doesn’t trust me?

No. That means that I want the freedom to do things behind her back. Things that she probably would not like.

In fact, it comforts me to know that she can know where I am at all times. This is because I am confident that what I do when she is not around will please her.

Not only that, but I remember that I still have sin in me. Knowing that my wife can see my location makes it less tempting for me to go somewhere that I shouldn’t. As a man of God, less temptation is comforting to me.

Maybe my wife does want my location because she doesn’t trust me or is punishing me. That would be her sin, and I can ask her about that. 

But even if she insists on this sin, if I am freely giving, then I would happily give her what she wants anyway.

5. It is decisive.

I can’t tell my wife:

“I’ll try not to cheat on you again.”

She would be right to leave me.

In the same way, I cannot say:

“I'll try to stop losing my patience with you.”

What I’m really saying is:

“I’ll stop, until it gets too hard to stop. Then, I’ll probably do it.”

That is not repentance. I have to make the decision to stop.

If the Gospel is true, and I believe it, then I have no reason to believe that I will lose my patience again. Even if I have apologized a million times before. 

God has made me new.

I have the power to be patient, every time.
 

This is all explored more deeply in Kelsey and I’s book, “Jesus’ Crazy Dream.” Learn how you can be the answer to Jesus’ prayer in John 17.

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