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     Don’t underestimate the power of forgiveness – Jesus’ way! Most people operate with a very limited view of forgiveness, and it limits their ability to live fully in the freedom they could be enjoying. Limited forgiveness limits your level of peace, limits your capacity for long-term relationships, limits your ability to shake off your disappointment in others and in life, and cripples your chances for entering every day full of joy. Why? Because the hurts and resentments of yesterday’s ‘stuff’ cling to you, haunt you, poison you and, in a way, own part of you.

     In his day, Jesus challenged the commonly accepted understanding and practice of forgiveness – in religion and in daily life. Basically, religion taught and people practiced “Conditional Forgiveness.” God was certainly willing to forgive this offense or that wrong, ‘if’.  That ‘if’ could be any number of conditions. Like, that you were sorry enough, promised never to fail this way again, made amends to God and others, performed some religious ritual or sacrifice, or kept rules and regulations in a better way. And if God conditioned mercy toward us this way, then we, too, could make our forgiveness of others or self depend on certain conditions being met. Someone does you dirt, cheats you, treats you poorly, does you wrong; okay, you might be willing to forgive them, but only if . . . if they apologize, show contrition, promise never to do this again, to change, to make it up to you. Then you will forgive.

     The problem with conditional forgiveness, both in Jesus’ day and in our lives, is that it grossly underestimates the breadth and depth and height of God’s mercy and grace. It also greatly diminishes the degree of liberty our spirits may freely and fully enjoy. In our case, it gives all the power to the offender, because we will now be chained to that person’s attitudes and behaviors and reactions to us; we must wait for them, depend on their acknowledgement of wronging us or on their efforts to make amends. That traps us and locks us into a place that can easily feed any bitterness, grudges, or anger in our hearts, poisoning our spirits and our lives.

     What was so liberating about Jesus’ approach to forgiveness is the expansive, unconditional nature of it. In my book Love Leads, I unpack this teaching and practice of Jesus in a chapter titled “Mission” which invites us to make our lives a mission for God. In a section that presents what the Kingdom of God is in the Gospel of Mark, one of the signs of the Kingdom is “Redemption,” which is just another word for liberation. According to Jesus, God’s Kingdom is marked by an all-pervasive forgiveness. Only an unconditional graciousness in all things will set us free. In Jesus’ way, the guiding principle is this: forgive everyone, everything, every day. It will release you from yesterday’s hurts and hassles. It will let your heart and spirit enter each day fresh and new. It will leave anything those who hurt you might do or not do all up to them, andwill release your happiness from any bonds to what they might do or not do. Just forgive all others of everything all the time. This is the spirit of Jesus who forgives you all things all the time, even before you confess a thing.

   Is that really true? Yes, it is. Christians believe that God, because of the Cross of Christ, has objectively forgiven us all of all our sins or wrongs. When Jesus from the Cross declares, “It is finished!” he means all judgment against us is done, forever. Of course, subjectively, we come into that forgiveness for ourselves when we hear his call to come and experience it, confess we need it, trust him for it, and then receive it. Then what was accomplished for us by Jesus death and resurrection becomes personally and fully ours. And actually, I doubt that any of us can even honestly confess our needs and sins fully unless we first believe and trust the wonderful news of God’s full acceptance and forgiveness of us first.

   So with regard to others, we now let the spirit of Christ’s all pervasive, unconditional forgiveness live through us. Don’t wait for the other to do anything. Forgive. It frees your heart. And it sets the stage for a chance the offender may some day seek to reconcile and make amends, perhaps in God’s time.

    Does this kind of free forgiveness mean you automatically reconcile with someone and just ignore the pain they caused. No, not at all. You may need to keep a boundary up in the relationship that will prevent further wounding. Trust will likely only be rebuilt if he or she faces things and admits them and seeks to make things right. Different than forgiveness, then, reconciliation IS usually very conditional. If it’s not too risky for you, once you have genuinely forgiven someone, you may wish to tell them this, and also how you were offended and what the offense did to you. This kind of ‘speaking the truth in love’ builds a bridge for someone to eventually walk over to you. But there are no guarantees. So forgive, yes; but don’t necessarily forget, until something has changed for better in the relationship. Overall, it’s best to just freely forgive, speak truth in love if you feel compelled to, but then shake things off, and keep moving forward into the positive, hopeful future God desires for you, God’s own beloved, forgiven child.