BY GORDON BIETZ

ear God, thank you for offering to forgive me for the mistakes I have made, but please don't treat me any differently than I have treated other people."

Such a prayer would be courageous-if we truly meant it! Think about how forgiving you are to the boss who fired you, the spouse who cheated on you, and the parents who abused you. Would you really ask God to treat you as you are treating them? It sounds like the golden rule. "Do to others as you would have them do to you."¹ We are saying to God, "Do to us as we have done to others." Is that how you really would like to be dealt with by God?

Yet how many times have we prayed such a prayer without giving thought to the meaning of the words "and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors"?² Are we really meaning we want God to forgive us in the same manner we forgive others? Is it our desire to receive no more and no less forgiveness ourselves than we give to others?

We might be tempted to say, "Well, that isn't exactly what is meant here." There must be some way to rationalize the clear meaning of this phrase. But if we read the verse immediately following the Lord's Prayer we find that we are not talking about an isolated phrase. The next verse reinforces this message: "For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins."³

Similarly, Jesus applies the standard of dealing with us as we deal with others in Matthew 7:1, 2: "Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you."

If the standard God uses to judge me is the standard I use on others, and if the forgiveness I receive from God is the same as the forgiveness I give to others, I am in trouble!

A Different Approach
It isn't that God keeps a record noting every time I was unforgiving. And when I go to Him for forgiveness, He doesn't get out the notebook and say something like: "Well, according to my tally sheet, Mr. Smith was critical of you and you held a grudge against him; therefore, I will not forgive you this time."

Rather, the Lord's Prayer tells us we show our hearts by how we forgive each other; we demonstrate our understanding of grace by how graceful we are toward each other. There is no divine accountant adding up our acts of forgiveness and checking to see that God doesn't forgive us more than we have forgiven others. The simple fact is that if we don't forgive others, we have not comprehended God's grace and forgiveness toward us.

There is no quicker way to learn if I have received God's forgiveness than to measure my forgiveness of others. In a sense my forgiveness of others is a thermometer of my understanding of grace-a scale of my connection with Jesus.

Using the math of tit for tat, Peter was being exceedingly generous when he asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?"⁴ Basically, Jesus' reply-"I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times"⁵ -is that Christians don't do math.

In the parable of the unmerciful servant,⁶ the servant who had his huge debt canceled by the king showed no mercy. He threw into prison the one who owed him a small amount. When the king learned of the unforgiving spirit of his servant, he "turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed."⁷ Jesus concludes, "This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart."⁸

As seen in this parable, the standard for God's treatment of us is based on our treatment of others: if we don't forgive others, it shows that we have not accepted the forgiveness God gives us. We don't understand and have not experienced grace; we don't recognize how large our debt is. God forgives us, and if we understand the implications of that, we are empowered to extend it to others: "We pardon in the degree that we love."⁹

Big Questions
It may be easy to forgive someone who cuts in front of you in line at the grocery store, but what about when your spouse runs out on you? To forgive when false rumors circulate about you is one thing, but what about when someone murders your child?

Anger and indignation are so invigorating; forgiveness seems Milquetoast weak in comparison. It feels good to be right when the other person is wrong. Such an enemy makes you look so good by comparison.

There is masochism in wanting to punish the offender. We wallow in our pain, resisting opportunities to extend the hand of forgiveness. We say such things as: "He needs to learn a lesson"; "I don't want to encourage irresponsible behavior; forgive them and they will do it again"; "I'll let her stew for a while. It will do her good"; "She needs to learn that actions have consequences. You can't do that and expect that everything will be fine"; "I was the wronged person. It's not up to me to make the first move"; and "How can I forgive if he's not even sorry?"

An unforgiving spirit is a boomerang that makes us feel good when we throw it, but it returns with a vengeance. As an article in Christianity Today suggested: "Staying angry with you is how I protect myself from you. Refusing to forgive you is not only how I punish you; it is also how I keep you from getting close enough to hurt me again, and nine times out of ten it works-only there is a serious side effect. It is called bitterness, and it can do terrible things to the human body and soul."¹⁰

Bitterness and resentment are the poisons of an unforgiving spirit, and they eat out our hearts. The word "resentment" actually means "to feel again." What we are doing when we carry resentment is to continually feel the pain. We are opening up the wound again and again. Imagine having a cut on your finger, and just as it is beginning to heal you pull the skin apart, breaking open the wound so it bleeds again. That is what we are doing with wounds of the spirit we refuse to forgive.

Our human tendency is to say, "I will forgive them-when they ask for forgiveness." Or "I will forgive them-when they show some remorse and when they crawl to me and say, 'You were right and I was wrong.'" But Christianity is a religion in which the sinners have all the advantages. They can step on your feet 50 times and you are supposed to keep smiling. They steal your car and you are supposed to fill it with gas. They steal your blouse and you give them the matching skirt. We love our enemies! The Christian forgives before he or she is asked. The Christian forgives if he or she is never asked. We have been forgiven, and God expects us to do unto others as God has done for us. On the cross Jesus said: "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing."¹¹

Building Forgiveness
The experience of the early church demonstrates a disturbing pattern. The church began to lose the spirit of forgiveness Jesus brought to it. According to Ellen White, "the early Christians began to look for defects in one another. Dwelling upon mistakes, giving place to unkind criticism, they lost sight of the Saviour and of the great love He had revealed for sinners. They became more strict in regard to outward ceremonies, more particular about the theory of the faith, more severe in their criticisms."¹²

As they lost faith they became more religious; they attended church more often. As they lost connection with Jesus, they became more concerned about doctrinal purity; they studied their Bibles more-but all for the wrong reasons. As they forgot the love of Jesus, they forgot forgiveness and focused on the problems of others.

Forgiveness is not an abracadabra spoken over some infraction and making it all better. Forgiveness is not a formula or phrase magically erasing all guilt. Forgiveness isn't something we save for those rare times when someone comes to us on bended knee. Forgiveness is experiencing a life of grace instead of ungrace. The life of grace doesn't keep score: "We are so lost in Christ that we do not take neglect or slights to heart; we are deaf to reproach and blind to scorn and insult."¹³

Clara Barton, the founder of the American Red Cross, was reminded one day of a vicious deed someone had done to her years before. But she acted as if she had never heard of the incident. "Don't you remember it?" her friend asked.
"No," came Barton's reply, "I distinctly remember forgetting it."¹⁴

The Obvious Solution
In The Essential Calvin and Hobbes the cartoon character Calvin says to Hobbes, "I feel bad that I called Susie names and hurt her feelings. I'm sorry I did it."

"Maybe you should apologize to her," Hobbes suggests.

Calvin ponders this for a moment and then replies, "I keep hoping there's a less obvious solution."¹⁵

It is the obvious solution: to treat others as God treats us. To not measure our response to others with the measure of tit for tat. To not determine our response by the actions of others. To not allow the many ways we are taken advantage of to leave their mark on our souls. Christians should have Teflon hearts: the offense never sticks.

Think of someone you have some feelings against. Think of someone who injured you, spoke evil of you, or cheated you. Now lift that person up in prayer, extending to them the grace of forgiveness-even though they may not have asked. Treat them as God has treated you.

And now that you have forgiven them, think of something you can do to express your forgiveness to that person. Maybe send them a note or invite them to lunch. In some small way express to them that things are clean between you. Pray-and live-this courageous prayer. Enjoy the healing love of forgiveness.

_________________________
¹ Luke 6:31. All Scripture quotations are from the New International Version.
² Matt. 6:12.
³ Verses 14, 15.
⁴ Matt. 18:21.
⁵ Verse 22.
⁶ Verses 23-35.
⁷ Verse 34.
⁸ Verse 35.
⁹ Francois de la Rochefoucauld, in Leadership 1, no. 4.
¹⁰ Taylor and Brown, "Why We Love This Deadly Sin: Staying Angry Protects Us From Getting Hurt Again, but at What Price?" Christianity Today, Feb. 9, 1998.
¹¹ Luke 23:34.
¹² Ellen White, Testimonies, vol. 8, p. 241. (Italics supplied.)
¹³ Ibid., vol. 2, p. 567.
¹⁴ Luis Palau, "Experiencing God's Forgiveness," Christianity Today 34, no. 15.
¹⁵ Bill Watterson, quoted by Norman Langston, in Leadership 13, no. 3.

_________________________
Gordon Bietz is president of Southern Adventist University in Collegedale, Tennessee.