Unforgiven

“[Love] does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil... bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” (1 Corinthians 13:5-7)

In the 1992 Western movie Unforgiven, Clint Eastwood is a retired Old West gunslinger who reluctantly takes one one last job with the help of his old partner Morgan Freeman and a young man. Although Hollywood crowned Unforgiven with a Best Picture Oscar, God wants us to walk in love, endure all things, and forgive. Forgiveness is not easy, as many of us have tried and just couldn’t do it. We’ve prayed and asked God for help, but those feelings of pain and resentment just won’t go away.

We need to put an end to those failures by basing our forgiveness on faith in the Word of God rather than our fickle feelings. True forgiveness has nothing to do with how we feel because it is an act of our will, and it’s based on obedience to God as we walk in love. Love takes no account of the evil done to it, nor does it pay attention to a suffered wrong. And once we’ve forgiven a person, we need to consider him or her permanently forgiven and forget the whole thing.

When old feelings surface and the devil tries to tell us that we really haven’t forgiven, resist him in the Name of Jesus. Then believe the Word that we receive forgiveness and cleansing from the sin of unforgiveness and from all unrighteousness including memories of having suffered. (1 John 1:9) When we forgive because we obey God, we’ll have a good conscience, and a good conscience is the sign of a bad memory. We are to forgive others because God in His great mercy has forgiven us (Ephesians 4:32), and we are to release that person from guilt permanently and unconditionally as an act of love.

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