{"id":9048,"date":"2019-10-01T20:25:28","date_gmt":"2019-10-02T00:25:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.inthineheart.com\/staging\/8143\/?p=9048"},"modified":"2020-02-21T22:40:35","modified_gmt":"2020-02-22T03:40:35","slug":"forgiveness-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.inthineheart.com\/staging\/8143\/2019\/10\/01\/forgiveness-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Forgiveness – Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

(The following is the first part of a five-part series. I want to preface this article by saying it is a compilation of thoughts that began in February or March of this year. What started as a 3-word phrase \u201cjumping off the page\u201d one morning in my personal devotions has continued to develop over the past seven or eight months via further Scripture reading, Bible commentaries, King James Bible preaching and devotional books, as well as personal experiences. This is certainly not an exhaustive study on the subject of forgiveness but rather a glimpse into what the Lord has been teaching me this year.) <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

“If He Repent”<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTake heed to yourselves: If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive him. And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again to thee, saying, I repent; thou shalt forgive him.\u201d Luke 17:3, 4 <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was the above Scripture that \u201cjumped off the page\u201d earlier this year \u2013 specifically the 3-word phrase \u201cif he repent\u201d. Although I had read that passage many times, for some reason the Holy Spirit seemed to take a highlighter to those three words that morning. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometime later, on March 23, my personal devotions included the following devotional from \u201cDaily Thoughts for Disciples\u201d<\/strong> by Oswald Chambers. (I\u2019m not sure how much time elapsed between these two readings as I did not record the first incident in my journal. I will estimate a few weeks.) <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

*****************************<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMoreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother.\u201d Matthew 18:15 <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt would be an immoral thing to forgive a man who did not say he was sorry. If a man sins against you and you go to him and point out that he has done wrong \u2013 if he hears you, then you can forgive him; but if he is obstinate you can do nothing; you cannot say \u2018I forgive you\u2019, you must bring him to a sense of justice. Jesus Christ said, \u2018I say unto you, Love your enemies\u2019, but He also said the most appallingly stern things that were ever uttered, e.g. \u2018\u2026neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.\u2019 I cannot forgive my enemies and remain just unless they cease to be my enemies and give proof of their sorrow, which must be expressed in repentance. I have to remain steadfastly true to God\u2019s justice. There are times when it would be easier to say, \u2018Oh well, it does not matter, I forgive you\u2019, but Jesus insists that the uttermost farthing must be paid. The love of God is based on justice and holiness, and I must forgive on the same basis.\u201d ~ Oswald Chambers<\/p>\n\n\n\n

************************ <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I read the above devotional that March morning, the 3-word phrase came back to me – \u201cif he repent\u201d. I must admit, the devotional went against the grain of what I felt the Lord had been teaching me in recent years on this subject of forgiveness. I had to go back and read it several times, along with the Scripture in Luke. That morning, I definitely had something to \u201cchew on\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nine days later \u2013 on April 1 \u2013 Faith Music Radio was playing while I was cleaning my bedroom. I had been going in and out with cleaning supplies, etc. but \u201cjust happened\u201d to be in my room to hear a preacher preaching on forgiveness and the biblical principle that the offender must repent before the offended can forgive. Does this mean that the offended grows bitter while waiting for the offender to ask for forgiveness? Absolutely not! The offended should ALWAYS be ready to forgive the second the offender repents. But, repentance must take place before one can be forgiven. This preacher\u2019s words, of course, reminded me of the two previous instances in my personal devotions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking back, I realize I didn\u2019t fully understand why God was continuing to put this truth before me but I did know that there was a purpose. My responsibility was simply to listen and learn. This past week, the Lord gave me peace to begin writing on this topic of forgiveness. Again, I certainly do not claim this to be an in-depth study but simply a compilation of thoughts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(The following is the first part of a five-part series. I want to preface this article by saying it is a compilation of thoughts that began in February or March of this year. What started as a 3-word phrase \u201cjumping off the page\u201d one morning in my personal devotions has continued to develop over the past seven or eight months via further Scripture reading, Bible commentaries, King James Bible preaching and devotional books, as well as personal experiences. This is certainly not an exhaustive study on the subject of forgiveness but rather a glimpse into what the Lord has been teaching me this year.) “If He Repent” \u201cTake heed to yourselves: If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive him. And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again to thee, saying, I repent; thou shalt forgive him.\u201d Luke 17:3, 4 It was the above Scripture that \u201cjumped off the page\u201d earlier this year \u2013 specifically the 3-word phrase \u201cif he repent\u201d. Although I had read that passage many times, for some reason the Holy Spirit seemed to take a highlighter to those three words that morning. Sometime later, on March 23, my personal devotions included the following devotional from \u201cDaily Thoughts for Disciples\u201d by Oswald Chambers. (I\u2019m not sure how much time elapsed between these two readings as I did not record the first incident in my journal. I will estimate a few weeks.) ***************************** \u201cMoreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother.\u201d Matthew 18:15 \u201cIt would be an immoral thing to forgive a man who did not say he was sorry. If a man sins against you and you go to him and point out that he has done wrong \u2013 if he hears you, then you can forgive him; but if he is obstinate you can do nothing; you cannot say \u2018I forgive you\u2019, you must bring him to a sense of justice. Jesus Christ said, \u2018I say unto you, Love your enemies\u2019, but He also said the most appallingly stern things that were ever uttered, e.g. \u2018\u2026neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.\u2019 I cannot forgive my enemies and remain just unless they cease to be my enemies and give proof of their sorrow, which must be expressed in repentance. I have to remain steadfastly true to God\u2019s justice. There are times when it would be easier to say, \u2018Oh well, it does not matter, I forgive you\u2019, but Jesus insists that the uttermost farthing must be paid. The love of God is based on justice and holiness, and I must forgive on the same basis.\u201d ~ Oswald Chambers ************************ As I read the above devotional that March morning, the 3-word phrase came back to me – \u201cif he repent\u201d. I must admit, the devotional went against the grain of what I felt the Lord had been teaching me in recent years on this subject of forgiveness. I had to go back and read it several times, along with the Scripture in Luke. That morning, I definitely had something to \u201cchew on\u201d. Nine days later \u2013 on April 1 \u2013 Faith Music Radio was playing while I was cleaning my bedroom. I had been going in and out with cleaning supplies, etc. but \u201cjust happened\u201d to be in my room to hear a preacher preaching on forgiveness and the biblical principle that the offender must repent before the offended can forgive. Does this mean that the offended grows bitter while waiting for the offender to ask for forgiveness? Absolutely not! The offended should ALWAYS be ready to forgive the second the offender repents. But, repentance must take place before one can be forgiven. This preacher\u2019s words, of course, reminded me of the two previous instances in my personal devotions. Looking back, I realize I didn\u2019t fully understand why God was continuing to put this truth before me but I did know that there was a purpose. My responsibility was simply to listen and learn. This past week, the Lord gave me peace to begin writing on this topic of forgiveness. Again, I certainly do not claim this to be an in-depth study but simply a compilation of thoughts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[51,20,65,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forgiveness","category-humility","category-relationships","category-restoration"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4o6C2-2lW","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inthineheart.com\/staging\/8143\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inthineheart.com\/staging\/8143\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inthineheart.com\/staging\/8143\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthineheart.com\/staging\/8143\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthineheart.com\/staging\/8143\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9048"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthineheart.com\/staging\/8143\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9048\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9327,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthineheart.com\/staging\/8143\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9048\/revisions\/9327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inthineheart.com\/staging\/8143\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthineheart.com\/staging\/8143\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthineheart.com\/staging\/8143\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}