415/444 Healing from Infidelity: Forgiveness Does Not Mean We Excuse the Person Who Did It
2012.10.25
One fear in forgiving others is that it will mean we excuse the one who wronged us. Excusing our betrayer can feel like we are saying it didn't matter. It can feel like we are saying, "It was nothing."
It was something.
It did matter. The wrong perpetrated mattered. Our hearts and souls matter.
The wrongs we perpetrate matter. In forgiveness the GodMan was nailed to a tree they mattered so much.
If that animal blood and the other rituals of purification were effective in cleaning up certain matters of our religion and behavior, think how much more the blood of Christ cleans up our whole lives, inside and out. Through the Spirit, Christ offered himself as an unblemished sacrifice, freeing us from all those dead-end efforts to make ourselves respectable, so that we can live all out for God. ~Hebrews 9