“Forgiveness is like the NHS – free at the point of use, massively costly to provide.” Jay Marsden

God brings the difficult subject of forgiveness onto our radar regularly as a church. Jonty challenged us in our service on 2 Corinthians 1:23-2:11 that we must pursue joy and forgiveness in our relationships with everyone at church. (When he pointed out that includes people we feel frustrated with and those we prefer just to ignore, I’m guessing not a few of us felt our consciences pricked!) We wrestled with it in Focus earlier this year when we explored the Lord’s Prayer together, where Jesus taught us to pray, “Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us (Luke 11:4). (Am I the only one who would find it much more palatable if the “for” and the “everyone” were edited out?) In our Focus series on the “one-anothers” in the Bible we had to include forgive one another since it appears over thirty times in the New Testament (i.e., I lost count at thirty!!! It appears A LOT.)

When we come across hard teaching, sometimes God is challenging us to go a bit deeper, and as a staff team we found Jay Marsden’s short book Forgiveness a helpful springboard. There are many other books available, I just like this because its short, simple and cheap (I got the ebook from 10ofthose which is currently less than £2 and will do you a lot more good than half a meal deal or a double cheeseburger from the McD’s saver menu). It also means you are likely to finish it so it doesn’t add to the pile of guilt on the bedside table. As a bonus, when someone asks what you’ve read recently you actually have something you can talk about! And what a great subject to have a discussion about – particularly if it’s a colleague or unbelieving friend who asks that question, for our forgiveness of one another is intimately connected to God’s forgiveness of us. 

I particularly appreciated that in his book Forgiveness, Jay Marsden faced head on the difficult questions like: Does forgiving someone mean I must drop all criminal charges against that person? I still feel angry about what happened. Does that mean I haven’t forgiven that person? What if the other person is not sorry for what happened? He does a deep dive into whether we can forgive someone unrepentant and I found his answer biblically proven and nicely nuanced.  

Here’s a couple of my favourite bits: 

“Forgiveness is a transaction with two sides. Both sides need to do their part for forgiveness to reach its goal of a restored relationship…As I think about that other person, I need to see myself as ‘putting out my hand’ to them. In my heart I need to keep my offer of forgiveness stretched out to them. I need to do this whether or not they take it.”

“We tend to think of forgiveness as an emotion. But the Bible talks about forgiveness as a decision of the will.”

“When you forgive that person who has sinned against you, you are giving them a first-hand practical demonstration of the gospel.” I have experienced both the massive cost and the unexpected blessing of this in my own life, you can read about it in this earlier blog post …as we also have forgiven our debtors? · The Globe Church

Our forgiveness came at massive cost to God, he gave his one and only perfect Son. For us. And that is free at the point of use. As God’s Spirit brings this wonderful truth home to our hearts he also empowers us to go and do likewise. If you need help with this I’d encourage you to reach out for help either from a book, from a friend or by emailing care@globe.church if you’d like to be connected with someone with experience in this area. 

Watch Sunday’s service on 2 Corinthians 1:23-2:11 here or listen to Jonty’s sermon here.