Every fractured, broken, or shattered relationship, needs unconditional forgiveness on all sides, for complete healing and full restoration of the relationship.

When people are at loggerheads with each other, and not on speaking terms because of anger, hurts, resentment, and disappointment, they need to sit up and become concerned about mutual forgiveness, deal with their differences and hurts, agree to bury the past, and move together again in love and unity.

LOVE AND TRUST

Love and trust form the fundamental bedrock for any close, healthy, satisfying, and productive relationship. And, love is very closely linked to forgiveness. I commonly define love as “giving and forgiving”.

Therefore, to talk about love and try to demonstrate love, without talking about forgiveness and demonstrating forgiveness, is like talking about ice cream without talking about milk, or talking about steak without talking about meat.

Forgiveness is a contract you sign with God in your heart (best way to do it is in prayer), to end the inner conflict you have with the offender, and your willingness to drop all charges, hurts, and possible vengeance towards the person, and leave the entire matter (what has happened) into God’s Hands. You also ask for the grace and strength from God to continue to do good to the person who offended you and sincerely get along nicely with the one.

No relationship can be fully restored and continue to flourish if the people involved are unwilling, reluctant, or unable to forgive all offences, then bury the past bitterness or disappointment, and unite to work harmoniously again.

Trust is the next step they need to work on, which will take some time for full trust to be totally built and restored. Trust is closely linked to honesty, integrity, and faith.

Broken trust is a very tough thing to rebuild and restore because trust is like a certificate --- you don’t just get or receive it, but you earn trust. It takes quite some time of many truthful words, sincere and loving acts, and the right forms of behaviours, along with exhibition of honesty and integrity, for someone to fully open his or her mind and heart to trust someone again, after a heartbreaking disappointment.

FORGIVING YOURSELF

The unwillingness and inability to forgive oneself after committing an offence, especially a grievous sin or crime, constitutes one of the most powerful agents that drain spiritual, moral, mental, and even physical strength from us.

This happens even in the lives of committed Christians who cannot consistently live in faith and obedience and are not able to accept God’s promise of forgiveness by faith.

The devil uses guilt as a major tool to accuse and condemn you, discourage you from drawing near to God for fellowship and joy, and prevents you from believing God and accepting who you are in Christ in order to be peaceful, joyful, fruitful, and successful.

Degrading and devastating sins and wrongdoing or unacceptable deeds that are condemned so much by the public and vehemently condemned by the church, such as fornication, adultery, different forms of sex perversion, indulgence in pornography, abortion, divorce, marital or child abuse, murder, robbery, financial dishonesty, bribery etc. are high on the list of sins and mistakes we commit and cannot easily forgive ourselves, especially if you later realize that you could have avoided or stopped it.

Other offences pertaining to lies, deceit, impersonation, slander, gossip, defamation of someone’s character, and addictions of various kinds, can put constant guilt in the consciences of people as well.

In fact, any kind of offence can be troubling for anyone with a tender and sensitive nature or spirit. The devil in conjunction with the world, can take any lapses, omissions, or violations to hammer on the person’s mind and spirit, and make him or her feel constantly ashamed and guilty.

When that happens after genuine confession, you must determine to constantly fight the guilt and shame with scriptures such as: “If we confess our sins, He (God) is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).

FORGIVING OTHERS

God has warned us that if we do not forgive others from our hearts, he will not forgive us when we sin against Him (Mathew 6:12, 15; Mathew 18:35; Mark 11:25, 26). The act of un-forgiveness is itself an act of sin.

There is a strong biblical basis why we must do our best to forgive our spouses, children, parents, brothers, sisters, other relatives, and friends who violate or offend us, no matter the nature and magnitude of the offence.

We know that the conditions differ (severe or mild), and several situations arise where the crime or evil that is committed is so grave that the damages cannot be easily undone, or even repaired.

Some grave offences can eat very deep into us and become extremely difficult to exercise forgiveness for them.

For example, if a beloved fiancee or spouse whom you served and sacrificed so much for, later becomes very unfaithful to you, violated or abused you, and later abandoned you for someone else as a lover, then it becomes a herculean task to forgive.

Or, the difficulty in forgiving someone you trusted with your precious money, business, property, position, or ministry, but who squandered and grossly mismanaged your money and resources, betrayed the trust and destroyed your legacy.

But, tough as it is to become friends or share a close relationship with the one again, that does not mean the offence should not be forgiven in our hearts, even if the one committed murder or had to be imprisoned for the particular crime.  

FORGIVE AND FORGET

Forgiving and forgetting an offence does not really mean that the offence would never come into your mind again after you have made the effort to forgive the offender.

It means that you open your heart for the power of God and application of scripture to destroy the poison of the offence in such a way that even if it comes into your mind at any time, it cannot have any negative effect on you and hold you in bondage. This is because the grace of God and your constant practice of love, have neutralized the original poison and pain that was created within you.

IMPORTANCE OF FORGIVENESS

We must quickly, honestly, and freely forgive the offences of others, develop a spirit of forgiveness, and enjoy living a life of forgiveness because:

1) We have experienced God’s forgiveness.

God has forgiven us through Jesus Christ and paid a great price of His own life to redeem us freely, which should give us cause to develop mercy, kindness, and compassion for others (Ephesians 4:32; Colossians 2: 13).

2) God commands us to forgive offences.

Living in un-forgiveness means living in disobedience to God and transgressing one of His holy commands (Luke 6:37; Ephesians 4: 31, 32).

3) God will not forgive us if we refuse to forgive others.

We rob ourselves of God’s forgiveness for our offences against Him because He has warned us that if we do not forgive others, he will not forgive us (Mathew 6:15).

4) Forgiveness is liberating.

Forgiveness sets us free from the bondage of holding grudges that breed bitterness, anger, frustration, pain, malice, unkindness, evil thoughts, gossip, slander, and even wickedness that sap our energies, rob us of our joy, destroy our peace, and disturbs our focus in life. The offender also feels liberated when we make him or her know that we have forgiven the offence, and lifts the burden of guilt and any sorrow or self-pity from him or her (2 Corinthians 2:7; Ephesians 4:32).

5) Forgiveness enables us to experience and produces the fruit of the Spirit.

Forgiveness opens the door for God’s light to destroy the darkness of the devil and sin in our lives, which consequently creates the path for God’s love, joy, peace, and all the fruit of the Spirit to be manifested in our lives.

6)  Forgiveness builds godliness in us.

Forgiveness is a fundamental character of God that accompanies God’s love that caused Him to give us His only begotten Son Jesus to die for us, in order to forgive us of our sins and establish a relationship with us.

Constant forgiveness, therefore, causes us to grow into the likeness of God as we allow the Spirit of God to develop more of God’s character in us in our marriages, family lives, friendships, ministries, business affairs, and all of our relationships. Forgiveness is a discipline that requires wisdom, vigilance, patience, and diligence, and therefore contributes in building discipline in our lives, and enables us to become more responsible towards people.

7) Forgiveness empowers us.

A life of forgiveness opens the door for God’s power to fill us for a life of holiness, authority over the devil, and true service. Anybody who nurses and harbours an unforgiving spirit is a spiritually (and sometimes even physically) weak person. True forgiveness emboldens a person in any relationship to proceed freely with his or her activities without inner hindrances of bitterness and resentment in the heart, spirit, and mind.

8) Forgiveness gives us respect, honour, and integrity.

People have lesser respect for a forgiving individual, than someone who is quick to revenge, hold grudges, resent, confront, shows disapproval, and gets even with anyone who offends him or her. Forgiveness goes along with mercy, kindness, gentleness, love, sincerity, open-heartedness, transparency, and cooperation, which are virtues that attract people to the possessors of such excellent qualities and win a lot of respect from their admirers (Ephesians 4:32).

9) Forgiveness protects us.

Since God loves forgiveness, and it is also part of God’s basic character, a life of forgiveness draws a constant flow of God’s divine and protective Presence into the life of a forgiving Christian. Forgiveness also saves us from drifting into trouble with any bitter or vengeful remarks and slander or yielding to any temptation to indulge in malicious acts that can land us in danger, offend God, and get us into the grips of demonic forces.

10) Forgiveness builds mutual fellowship and relationships.

Is there any factor that spices, flavours, energizes, defines, and gives true meaning to true fellowship and productive relationships than forgiveness?                    

We know that love is the fundamental glue that bonds people together, but it is impossible to allow love to operate if forgiveness does not constantly make us forgive offences of the past and present, push them behind, and continue to love one another.

Un-forgiveness for the offence committed against you by a spouse, fiancée, parent, child, relative, or close friend, could spill over and cause you to extend the bitterness and grudge towards someone who was close with the one who originally offended you, even after the death of the offender.

A person nursing a hurt and a grudge can infect anyone who is close, an entire workplace or institution, a whole family, and even the surrounding atmosphere and community, with a dark and gloomy spirit of bitterness, vengeance, sabotage, backbiting character, the poison of negative words and criticisms, and a spirit of unhappiness.

A spouse or fiancée with a spirit of un-forgiveness cannot enjoy his or her marriage or relationship because he or she cannot love and appreciate the husband, wife, or friend as a gift from a loving and wise God.

11) Forgiveness is an act of worship.

Every act of forgiveness is also an act or worship, because every act of obedience is an act of worship, and God requires us to obey His command to forgive. God defines our worship as our lifestyle of dedication and obedience that enables us to present ourselves as living sacrifices to God daily on an altar of worship (Romans 12:1, 2).

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(Obtain more practical teaching on “Forgiveness” and on “Conflict Resolution” from Dr. Kisseadoo’s book: “Restoring Broken Relationships”).

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This article is authored by Rev. Dr. Samuel Kisseadoo.

Professor of Biology. International Evangelist. Bible Teacher. Author. Conference Speaker. Relationships, Marriage, and Family Counsellor. Founder and President, Fruitful Ministries International Incorporated (An Evangelistic and Teaching Christian Organization).

Website: www.fruitfulministriesint.com.  Email: kisseadoo@msn.com  For free counselling and prayer, meetings, copies of Dr. Kisseadoo’s books, messages on CD etc.

Tune in to JOY 99.7 FM in Accra, Ghana to listen to Dr. Kisseadoo’s weekly broadcast “Hope For Your Family” on Sat. 5:30am-6am, Ghana time (1:30 am - 2: 00 am, US Eastern Time in March –Nov.). You can access the broadcast on the Internet using www.myjoyonline.com

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