THE BARRIER OF UNFORGIVENESS
For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.
(Matthew 6: 14-15 – NAS)
So, Jesus has finished His “example prayer,” but wants to make sure His followers understand a very key point in the prayer. He wants to be certain that we grasp at one thing that can stand between us and our Father in heaven.
Unforgiveness.
The love of God is unconditional. We should never doubt that. He does truly love us with all of His being. But even though that love is indeed unconditional and perpetually available to us, that does not mean that it cannot be obstructed.
Access to God’s love and forgiveness requires an open channel between our hearts and His. And the one thing that can block that up, that can choke off the flow, is a failure to forgive others.
Why should this be so?
In simplest terms, unforgiveness is a failure to love others. When we do not forgive others, we have shut them out of our hearts. We close the door on any connection to that person.
But God is Love, and needs “open doors.” God cannot enter in, if we have closed off our door to anyone. He can stand outside knocking (“I stand at the door and knock.” Rev. 3: 20), but He has to wait for us to open the door to Him.
It’s easy to fall into regarding these two verses as a sort of quid pro quo, we do this for God and He’ll do that for us. We can fall into treating the act of forgiving others as if it were just another duty. We don’t always think about it as being necessary to our relationship with God.
Yet, every small unforgiveness is one thing standing between us and the full love of God.
And there’s another thing that gets in the way of our being able to fully commit to forgiving others: we actually find it easier to forgive strangers and those outside our intimate circle than it is to forgive those who are “inside our defenses.”
How easily we hold on to the small resentments and hurts that our loved ones inadvertently – or intentionally – inflict upon us. And because they are small things, we “don’t bother” addressing the need for forgiveness. “Sue was in such a rush yesterday, she stepped on my foot. And my toe is all black and blue because of it. It hurts.” “I know Bob was joking yesterday, when he made that quip, but because of this other set-back I had, it really cut me to the quick.” “Terry was certainly trying to give me wise advice and counsel. But that one recommendation might as well have been a knife to my heart!” All these things we carry around, never mention to the people involved, and brood over. “How could they not know how badly they wounded me? They don’t really care, that must be it!”
And so we harbor resentment. We let our sense of injury find a haven in our hearts, and with each little pile of misery, we close the door a crack. We keep the clutter of resentments around, because individually they don’t seem all that big a deal, not realizing that the whole collection is becoming so big that it is shutting the door.
And God is standing outside that door waiting to come in.
And then one day, the door is closed, and we look around and wonder where all that light and joy went. How did the door get closed? Where did God go? Why isn’t He here?
And we start thinking that He is the one who left us.
The reality is that we let our massive collection of unforgiveness push Him right out the door. We have become hoarders of the emotional garbage of our own lives.
It isn’t that God won't forgive us if we do not forgive others. It is that He cannot. Forgiveness requires the very touch of His hand on our hearts. It requires His presence inside our hearts. And if we’ve pushed Him outside, leaving Him on our doorstep, what can He do?
The danger for us is that we can delude ourselves about how connected we are to the Lord. After all, every day, He stands on our doorstep waiting for us. Others go by and say “Oh, look how wonderful! The Lord is at Sam’s house!” We step outside our heart-house and go about our daily business, and the Lord walks with us, and others think it’s wonderful. We’re doing so many of the actions Jesus has told us to do, and obviously He’s at our elbows. But others may not realize that when we go home to live with what is inside our hearts, we haven't made any room for the Lord to actually come in.
Why do we hold on to this emotional clutter? It tastes bitter and unpleasant. It does not nourish us in any way. It eats away at our energy and joy. So why do we hold onto all the little resentments, angers, and injuries?
Perhaps because we’re afraid that if we let go of them we will have nothing inside. At least with the resentments we know we are feeling something. If we let go of those, what have we left?
If we let go of them, if we sweep them out of our hearts, what we have left is a wide, open space in our hearts, in our lives. for God to fill up with Himself. The Glory of God stands at the door of our hearts waiting to come in, if we would just get rid of the junk, if we would just forgive everyone who has trespassed against us.
What do we get if we forgive others? Oh, nothing more than all of heaven taking up residence inside us.
All we need to is cast open that door and sweep out the clutter of unforgiveness.
For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.
(Matthew 6: 14-15 – NAS)
So, Jesus has finished His “example prayer,” but wants to make sure His followers understand a very key point in the prayer. He wants to be certain that we grasp at one thing that can stand between us and our Father in heaven.
Unforgiveness.
The love of God is unconditional. We should never doubt that. He does truly love us with all of His being. But even though that love is indeed unconditional and perpetually available to us, that does not mean that it cannot be obstructed.
Access to God’s love and forgiveness requires an open channel between our hearts and His. And the one thing that can block that up, that can choke off the flow, is a failure to forgive others.
Why should this be so?
In simplest terms, unforgiveness is a failure to love others. When we do not forgive others, we have shut them out of our hearts. We close the door on any connection to that person.
But God is Love, and needs “open doors.” God cannot enter in, if we have closed off our door to anyone. He can stand outside knocking (“I stand at the door and knock.” Rev. 3: 20), but He has to wait for us to open the door to Him.
It’s easy to fall into regarding these two verses as a sort of quid pro quo, we do this for God and He’ll do that for us. We can fall into treating the act of forgiving others as if it were just another duty. We don’t always think about it as being necessary to our relationship with God.
Yet, every small unforgiveness is one thing standing between us and the full love of God.
And there’s another thing that gets in the way of our being able to fully commit to forgiving others: we actually find it easier to forgive strangers and those outside our intimate circle than it is to forgive those who are “inside our defenses.”
How easily we hold on to the small resentments and hurts that our loved ones inadvertently – or intentionally – inflict upon us. And because they are small things, we “don’t bother” addressing the need for forgiveness. “Sue was in such a rush yesterday, she stepped on my foot. And my toe is all black and blue because of it. It hurts.” “I know Bob was joking yesterday, when he made that quip, but because of this other set-back I had, it really cut me to the quick.” “Terry was certainly trying to give me wise advice and counsel. But that one recommendation might as well have been a knife to my heart!” All these things we carry around, never mention to the people involved, and brood over. “How could they not know how badly they wounded me? They don’t really care, that must be it!”
And so we harbor resentment. We let our sense of injury find a haven in our hearts, and with each little pile of misery, we close the door a crack. We keep the clutter of resentments around, because individually they don’t seem all that big a deal, not realizing that the whole collection is becoming so big that it is shutting the door.
And God is standing outside that door waiting to come in.
And then one day, the door is closed, and we look around and wonder where all that light and joy went. How did the door get closed? Where did God go? Why isn’t He here?
And we start thinking that He is the one who left us.
The reality is that we let our massive collection of unforgiveness push Him right out the door. We have become hoarders of the emotional garbage of our own lives.
It isn’t that God won't forgive us if we do not forgive others. It is that He cannot. Forgiveness requires the very touch of His hand on our hearts. It requires His presence inside our hearts. And if we’ve pushed Him outside, leaving Him on our doorstep, what can He do?
The danger for us is that we can delude ourselves about how connected we are to the Lord. After all, every day, He stands on our doorstep waiting for us. Others go by and say “Oh, look how wonderful! The Lord is at Sam’s house!” We step outside our heart-house and go about our daily business, and the Lord walks with us, and others think it’s wonderful. We’re doing so many of the actions Jesus has told us to do, and obviously He’s at our elbows. But others may not realize that when we go home to live with what is inside our hearts, we haven't made any room for the Lord to actually come in.
Why do we hold on to this emotional clutter? It tastes bitter and unpleasant. It does not nourish us in any way. It eats away at our energy and joy. So why do we hold onto all the little resentments, angers, and injuries?
Perhaps because we’re afraid that if we let go of them we will have nothing inside. At least with the resentments we know we are feeling something. If we let go of those, what have we left?
If we let go of them, if we sweep them out of our hearts, what we have left is a wide, open space in our hearts, in our lives. for God to fill up with Himself. The Glory of God stands at the door of our hearts waiting to come in, if we would just get rid of the junk, if we would just forgive everyone who has trespassed against us.
What do we get if we forgive others? Oh, nothing more than all of heaven taking up residence inside us.
All we need to is cast open that door and sweep out the clutter of unforgiveness.
Labels: Forgiveness, Matthew 6, Sermon on the Mount
posted by Sarah | 8:57 AM
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