If your brother is not sorry for wrongs against you, then you have no obligation to forgive him.
Your forgiveness is not for you, it is to reconcile the relationship. If you say "I forgive you" and the response is anger for your saying so, it doesn't bring about a restored relationship. Because one must first have the confession of wrong to receive the forgiveness.
I have not forgiven someone I know who refused to admit what they did to me, I feel no burden at all about it. I obeyed God, went to them, they refused to hear me so I walked away with a clear conscience.
I needed not say "I forgive you" to have that clear conscience. I merely had to address the problem with them in hopes that they would repent. They did not so I do not forgive him. I have no guilt about not forgiving them because they would not have received it anyway. We cannot have a relationship because of the stubbornness of someone else to repent.
The key message here is that it is not wrong to withhold forgiveness to one who does not want it. My offender proved they did not want it, so my saying "I forgive you" would do nothing.
The desire we have to reconcile is what does something, not the words, "I forgive you." Saying words does nothing, but making an attempt to reconcile was what relieves us of any further responsibility. It also relieves us of any obligation to remain in the relationship.
We live in a culture that thinks mere words are enough to reveal character. This is not true and serves only to relieve us of guilt. False guilt to do things man's way is flying all over the place these days.
We are made to feel guilty for not giving food to the food drive because they are having a food drive. Never mind that most of the people receiving the food don't really need it if they would just manage their money better. I call these things feel good programs that are nearly useless.
I saw a food line one time on the news. It literally made me laugh. The line was over a hundred people deep to receive their free canned food. Most of the people in the line were over weight and wearing the latest fashion. They had tats and the latest model strollers while a cigarette was hanging out of their mouth, not to mention fake finger nail.
While I am not against nice cloths and fake finger nails, I find it hard to believe that a heavy person with fake finger nails, cigarettes and modern clean clothes would need to be in a food line. Not to mention those ugly tats that are very expensive. Perhaps it would be better to train these people how to manage their money better.
But of course those of us who believe in earning our way and forgiving the repentant are called mean spirited and unforgiving when all we want is for people to realize their need for Christ in order to have a changed character. Notice, all we are saying is that there must be confession. We are not saying not to forgive, we are merely saying to forgive properly as Christ taught.
Saying "I forgive you" to an unrepentant heart is the same as saying "its alright for you to be sinful and evil." Giving food and money to one who wastes what they have on foolish things in order to have their needs met by others is enabling these people to continue managing their money badly.
God's love is far different from the human love that is paraded as kindness these days. It is not loving to victims to see others coddling and pampering the perps. It is not loving to the perps to be coddled and pampered. They need to confess their wrong and resolve to live differently. It is not loving to give to the poor what they should be earning for themselves. Many people who are lazy are receiving free things that they should earn. If they earned for themselves they would retain dignity and grace.
The giving away free forgiveness is like giving away free food and other goods to those who will not work. It creates the loss of dignity in making our own way, it removes incentives to seek Christ to grow a better character.
Our character stagnates and eventually regresses when we are not required to improve. We need incentives to progress.
This is one of the things that angers me the most. Those who want to think well of themselves for giving something to someone, don't seem to care if the giving is good for the person they give to.
Sometimes withholding something from someone is the best motivator there is to giving them the little shove they need to take care of business.
Please stop enabling lazy people by giving them what they should earn for themselves. Stop enabling the sinful man in his sin by prematurely forgiving him.
In order to learn lessons in life we must have the consequences of our own actions teach us. If we go hungry for a day because we refused to fish, then that is not on anyone else who didn't give us a fish, its on us for not going fishing. And hallelujah, the one who went hungry for a day for not fishing, will learn to go fish if he wants to eat. Then he will be satisfied that he did it himself.
If someone loses friends because they do mean things then that could teach them to act better.
It is not kind to remove consequences and thus lessons from those who can learn no other way.
Most people will continue to do whatever they can get away with. If there is no loss for behavior then the behavior not only does not change it progresses toward worse behavior.
There is laziness in depending on others to sustain you and there is laziness in absolving a sinner before there is repentance. It takes courage to uphold God's standard. It is far easier to ignore sinful behavior than it is to work it out or remove ourselves.
Proverbs 26:23-28 "Like an earthen vessel overlaid with silver dross
Are burning lips and a wicked heart.
24 He who hates disguises it with his lips,
But he lays up deceit in his [l]heart.
25 When [m]he speaks graciously, do not believe him,
For there are seven abominations in his heart.
26 Though his hatred covers itself with guile,
His wickedness will be revealed before the assembly.
27 He who digs a pit will fall into it,
And he who rolls a stone, it will come back on him.
28 A lying tongue hates [n]those it crushes,
And a flattering mouth works ruin."
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