Ephesians 4:32 — “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”
This week I had the privilege of sharing the Gospel with the Sandinistas. Before I went, I asked God what He wanted me to say to them. His answer was simple: just preach love, grace and the freedom of forgiveness. Nothing else. I have to tell you — I liked that assignment. Because God is love (1 John 4:8), and I have learned something over the years that I can’t get away from: you cannot hand another person the freedom of God’s love while your own hands are still closed around a grudge.
Every single person reading this has been wronged by someone. That’s not a guess — it’s the human condition. And here is what I’ve watched unforgiveness do to good people: it is like drinking poison and hoping the other person gets hurt. It works as an anchor to the past, holding us in a bitterness we never chose. It locks us in a cell. And the strangest part is that the door was never locked from the outside.
We all want God’s grace the very moment we mess up. But let somebody else wrong us, and we quietly start keeping a scorecard. I know, because I’ve kept my share of them. Paul doesn’t leave us much room: “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you” (Ephesians 4:32). Just as. That’s the measure — not what they deserve, but what I was already given.
Before we go one step further, let me clear up three things forgiveness is not — because these misunderstandings keep good people trapped for years. Forgiveness is not excusing what happened. It never says it was no big deal. It says the opposite: what was done to you was genuinely wrong. Forgiveness is not forgetting. Our minds remember pain and trauma, and God knows that; forgiving simply means we choose not to dwell on the offense or wield it as a weapon. And forgiveness is not automatically handing back your trust. Trust is earned over time. You can forgive someone completely and still keep healthy boundaries that protect you from being harmed again.
Colossians 3:13 — “Bear with each other and forgive one another… Forgive as the Lord forgave you.”
So what is it, then? Forgiveness is a decision, not a feeling. It is an act of the will — the moment you surrender your right to get even. The Greek word in the Scriptures is charizomai, and it means to freely and graciously give. It is the canceling of a debt. You absorb the cost of what was done to you, and you stop holding the other person accountable to you for it. And notice we don’t do this because someone earned it. We do it because that is precisely how Christ forgave us.
An important side note: we must forgive even if the offending party never asks for forgiveness or shows an ounce of remorse. Their repentance was never the condition. Our freedom does not hang on their apology.
Forgive others. Make it a daily — sometimes moment-by-moment — decision to release the person from the debt you feel they owe you. Not once. As many times as it takes.
Forgive yourself. For many of us this is the harder one. Self-condemnation is its own prison cell. Accept the forgiveness God has already given, and stop punishing yourself for what He has covered.
Pray for the one who hurt you. It is very difficult to stay bitter toward someone you are actively praying for. Ask God for their healing, and that His grace would reach them the way it reached you.
Christ’s forgiveness is the pattern, and it seems like it cost Him everything. Romans 5:8 tells us that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us — completely undeserved, and costly beyond anything we can measure. Whenever you and I truly forgive someone, it costs us something too: our pride, our ego, our appetite for revenge. But look at what that cost purchased. God wiped the slate clean — not smudged, clean. And Colossians 3:13 asks us to forgive others with that same completeness: as the Lord forgave you.
I think about all of this constantly with the children we serve here in Managua. Many of them have every earthly reason to be bitter. They have been abandoned. They have gone hungry. Some have been hurt by the very people who were supposed to protect them. The world handed them a scorecard before they were old enough to read it. And what we get to bring them — alongside a meal and a safe place — is the one thing that can genuinely set them free: a Savior who forgives them, and who teaches them how to forgive.
So let me ask you, my beloved: is there someone you need to forgive today? Or is it possible that you need to accept God’s forgiveness for yourself, maybe for the very first time? Unforgiveness keeps us chained to the very people who hurt us. Forgiveness is the key that unlocks the cell and lets us walk out into the peace and freedom of Christ.