09 How to Forgive

The trade-up approach to forgiving others

View the video on YouTube here

Trading up
In this mixed-up world, sometimes we cannot use our anger for its intended use—to correct a problem or injustice—because sometimes we don’t have the freedom to do so.

So what do we do? We trade up. We hand the anger over to Jesus and see what He has in exchange for us. It might be peace. It might be joy. It might be some new insight that we never had before. It might be a plan. I don’t know what it will be, I just know that any time you give anything to God you always get something better in return.

In other words, we forgive.

What is forgiveness?
Forgiveness is making room for the work of God in someone’s life. We forgive the offense, by renouncing our claim to get revenge or to personally punish the offender for the offense. (That doesn’t mean, by the way, that we obstruct the state’s right to prosecute a criminal offender. The government has a mandate from God to administer justice. See Romans 13.) When we forgive, we give God room to enter the situation to do something supernatural. We step out of God’s place in the offender’s life. Forgiveness is about canceling a debt. It is about not needing to exact “payment” for the offense that took place.

And the key to forgiving is figuring out why you can’t.

Example
Some years ago, a friend and I were helping a woman who had been horribly abused to forgive the perpetrator of that abuse. She sat across from us, closed her eyes and concentrated on her words. “I choose to forgive,” she said. Clearly she was mustering all her willpower as she forced herself to forgive an offender for his acts of abuse.

She tried to force herself to forgive. This is the way Christianity is commonly practiced. Do what you know is right whether you feel like it or not.

But I believe that God wants to do a better work, a deeper work in the lives of His people. I believe that Jesus will show up for His people when they lay aside their own efforts and rely totally on Him.

I sensed that her anger toward this offender was still solidly in place. So I asked her to focus on whatever feelings came up when she thought about this man and his offenses.

Sure enough. Despite her best efforts to forgive, the anger remained as strong as ever.

I said to her, “Look inside your heart, and let me know if there are any reasons why you can’t give this anger to Jesus.”

She thought about it and said, “If I give my anger to Jesus, I feel like I’m letting the offender off the hook.”

With her permission, I brought her objection to Jesus, and invited the Lord to deal with this reason she couldn’t release her anger. “What about this?” I asked the Lord. “Will giving her anger to You let this guy off the hook?”

A moment later, she smiled. The reason was gone. We repeated this process again—identifying a different heart lie and getting a truth experience from Jesus. Then she said. “I’m ready to give this anger to Jesus.” Soon the anger was gone, and, in it’s place, she felt soothing peace and joy. After a few more moments of letting Jesus share with her how much He cared about her, she was delighted to forgive the offender.

She walked away flooded with peace and joy, thanking God for His goodness to her.

What a contrast! On one hand she tried to do what was right and was left with anger, bitterness and a cheap substitute for the real power of God. On the other hand, when Jesus was brought into the broken places in her heart, He made everything new.

Steps to forgiving
Our goal is to find the lies that are holding the anger in place, and get a truth experience from Jesus to correct those lies. Once we have no more reason to hold on to the anger, we hand the anger over to Jesus. Here’s how we do that: We find the anger, feel it, connect it to the offense and ask ourselves the question: Is there any reason that would keep me from giving this anger to Jesus? If there is, bring those reasons to Jesus and let Him deal with them. When He does, then the reasons will be gone.

When all the reasons are gone, then you can release the anger for that offense to Jesus. Once the anger is gone, forgiving that offense—canceling the debt—is easy. If you find that you cannot forgive, there is probably a lie someplace that you need to find with Jesus and invite Jesus in to show you the truth.

Here are the steps.

Sometimes we can do this on our own. Sometimes we need help from a godly friend, a trained prayer minister, or a licensed therapist.

1. Focus on the anger. It won’t go away simply because you deny it or will it away. If you do, it will just get buried and come out some other way—ulcers, a fit of uncontrollable rage, consuming bitterness.

2. Figure out why you are angry. Take your time with this. Sometimes the reason will surprise you. Sometimes there are many reasons.

3. Discover why you need to hang on to your anger. Anger always serves a purpose. If you no longer had the anger, where would that leave you? Again, take your time with this. The answer will probably surprise you. It’s not uncommon for part of your mind to be eager to release the anger, but another part to be reluctant. We need to find that reluctant part and hear out those reasons for reluctance. You can ask yourself, Is there any hesitation or resistance to the idea of handing this anger over to Jesus? What do I believe would happen if I forgave? Look at whatever comes into your mind, even if it seems ridiculous to your logical mind.

4. Bring the answer(s) from step 3 to Jesus. Own your feelings and beliefs. Hold them up to the Lord and see what He does with them. The reason may be crazy to our logical mind. No matter—take it to Jesus anyway. What do we do with the reasons? I don’t do anything with them. I don’t argue with them. I don’t reason with them. I just hand them over to Jesus. Jesus knows how to deal with these; I don’t. So why should I try to deal with them? Jesus, this is what feels true. What do You want me to know? What do You have for me?

NOTE: You may need to repeat Steps 1-4 one or more times before you are ready to move on to Step 5.

5. When you’re ready, release the anger to Jesus. Let Him carry it for you. This is where forgiveness takes place.

Compassion
You will usually find as you go through this process that God supplies you with a supernatural compassion for the offender—compassion that makes forgiving from your heart easy. This compassion is an evidence of God’s grace. Compassion comes from seeing people and their actions from God’s perspective.

Questions:

1. What does it mean to trade up?
2. Explain the process for handing our anger over to Jesus.
3. Why is it important to identify the reasons we don’t want to release our anger?
4. How does Jesus correct the lies we believe?
5. How does this empower us to forgive?

NEXT: The under-anger approach to forgiving others (Lesson #10)
Here’s an alternative approach that works better for some people or some situations. Again, we find a way to access God’s grace, so he can do the supernatural work in our lives that only He can do.

Explore these related resources…

In my course, Spiritual Self Defense, we provide additional guidance for this approach including how to use this with other techniques that we don’t have time to cover here.

Questions? Want to talk? Connect at our Facebook group…

Scriptures for further study

Forgiving others commanded or referenced
(From the Lord’s prayer) And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 14 For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. (Matthew 6:12, 14-15 NIV)

Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.[a] [a] Greek everyone who is indebted to us (Luke 11:4a NIV)

Jesus said, “Contain quarrels. If a Christian does something to harm you, go to him privately and resolve the problem. He may listen, apologize and make it right. If that happens, you have a friend. But if he won’t listen, take along one or two others because these witnesses can bring clarity to the situation. If he still refuses to listen, then bring it up to the church. If he won’t listen to the church, then he’s made himself like an outsider, and you’ll need to treat him as such.

“Understand the truth: Your connection with Me gives you incredible power. When your purposes are aligned with Mine, you can open and close doors in the unseen spiritual world just as you do in your every day life. When two or three of you pray, desiring My name to be advanced, I’m standing right beside you.”

Peter then asked, “Master, how many times should I forgive a brother who hurts me? Seven times?”

Jesus answered, “No, instead seventy times seven.

“It’s like this: A king wanted to settle debts with people who owed him money. One of his subjects owed him well over $400 million (375 tons of silver or even gold). He couldn’t pay; so the king proposed liquidating the man’s estate and then selling him, his wife and his children as slaves. The debtor fell to the ground pleading, ‘Give me time. Give me time. I’ll find a way to pay it all back.’ The king had compassion on this man and decided to cancel the debt. Then the man who had his debt canceled found someone who owed him money, about four months wages. He grabbed him by the throat and said, ‘Where’s my money?’ The man fell to the ground and begged him, ‘Give me time. Please give me time and I’ll pay it all.’ But he refused. Instead, he had him thrown into debtors’ prison to be kept until the debt was paid. When the other subjects witnessed this, they went and told the king everything. The king had the man summoned. He said, ‘You evil man! I canceled your debt when you pleaded with me. Why didn’t you have compassion on the man who owed you money?’ Then the king handed the man over to be tortured in prison until every bit of his debt was paid. This is how My Father in heaven will treat you if you don’t forgive your fellow Christian from your heart.” Matthew 18:15-35 DCR

And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins. (Mark 11:25 NIV)

Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. (Luke 6:37 NIV)

Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. (Ephesians 4:32 NIV)

Now instead, you ought to forgive and comfort him, so that he will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. 8 I urge you, therefore, to reaffirm your love for him. 9 Another reason I wrote you was to see if you would stand the test and be obedient in everything. 10 Anyone you forgive, I also forgive. And what I have forgiven—if there was anything to forgive—I have forgiven in the sight of Christ for your sake, 2 Corinthians 2:7-10 NIV (see 1 Corinthians 5:1-13 for context)

Even if they sin against you seven times in a day and seven times come back to you saying ‘I repent,’ you must forgive them. (Luke 17:4 NIV)

Love prospers when a fault is forgiven, but dwelling on it separates close friends. Proverbs 17:9 NLT

If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven. (John 20:23 NIV)

Jesus’ example
Jesus healed one of the men who arrests Him
And one of them struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his right ear. 51 But Jesus answered, “No more of this!” And he touched the man’s ear and healed him. (Luke 22:50-51 NIV) (See also Matthew 26:51-54, Mark 14:47, John 18:10-11)

Jesus forgave from the cross
Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”[a] And they divided up his clothes by casting lots. [a] Some early manuscripts do not have this sentence. (Luke 23:34 NIV)

Anger
Sure, you will get angry. Everybody does. But don’t let your anger turn into sin. Release it to God before the day ends. (Ephesians 4:26 DCR)

A person’s wisdom yields patience; it is to one’s glory to overlook an offense. (Proverbs 19:11 NIV)

[Love] does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. (1 Corinthians 13:5 NIV)

My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. (James 1:19-20 NIV)

[Jesus said,] But I say, if you are even angry with someone, you are subject to judgment! If you call someone an idiot, you are in danger of being brought before the court. And if you curse someone, you are in danger of the fires of hell.” (Matthew 5:22 NLT)

Sometimes God does NOT forgive
Sometimes prophets ask God NOT to forgive people. Examples: Isaiah 2:8-9, Jeremiah 18:23. And sometimes God chooses not to forgive. Examples: Hosea 1:6, Matthew 12:32

Yet God wants all to repent

The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. (2 Peter 3:9 NIV)

And our enemy is not human
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. (Ephesians 6:12 NIV)

Blood atonement and forgiveness
This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. (Matthew 26:28 NIV)

In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. (Hebrews 9:22 NIV)