Anyone who feels a sense of entitlement to your forgiveness has not been broken over their sin. The offender never "expects" forgiveness if they are truly sorry, they are too busy feeling a sense of failure because of their sin. They want reconciliation but they do not expect it because they know what they deserve.
We must forgive those who are repentant and confess their sin against us, we love to do this, it is what reconciles a relationship. There is great joy in reconciling a relationship God's way. It dissolves the feelings of hurt and animosity, even melting the heart. However, if there is no sorrow over sin the feelings remain and there is no peace that comes to the heart. When there is true reconciliation then peace is restored to both hearts.
A relationship is not reconciled if confession is missing or if forgiveness is absent. Both must be present for there to be a cleansing of the problem to move forward toward reconciliation. All debt is mitigated, which means "in the past and done with."
This is what forgiveness is all about, it is not for only one person, it is for the relationship. Psychology has this wrong because it is not based on the Bible but on Darwinism in which every person is a victim of someone else even if they are perpetrating evil on others.
When someone is deeply sorry for their offense, enough to feel shame and express it openly is when we know there has been a change of heart that leads to a change in behavior. This is why God told us to confess our sins to Him so that we can be cleansed and reconciled to HIm.
If we are too prideful to admit and confess openly our sin we are not yet sorry enough to be cleansed of it.
1 John 1:9
"9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous, so that He will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness."
Only those who confess and are cleansed will grow into a better person with a greater ability to become the person God meant for them to become.
Psalm 51:16-17 "…16 For You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; You take no pleasure in burnt offerings. 17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise."
God is not interested in our attempts to "make up for our sins" by doing other good things. This mentality of making amends without the requirement of confessing only builds further pride over an accomplishment, it never changes the heart of a person. Relieving our temporary sad feelings is not God's goal, His goal is to change our heart and He cannot do that if we are not humbled enough to confess with a desire never to repeat the offense again.
Remember if someone is so humbled as to confess there will be a change in behavior because their heart has been changed.
If an offender "apologizes" because we are offended and have withdrawn, but continues the same behavior then they are merely manipulating us into letting them off the hook. They are not interested in a changed heart or changed behavior. These people are not sorry they are only manipulating to relieve themselves of the bad feelings, even guilt created by the problem. The offender has little or no concern about the person or the relationship they only want the problem to end for their own sake.
This is the same mentality we see in the jails, people who are not sorry they committed a crime but are sorry they are paying the consequences. These kinds of people do not change, they only learn to manipulate to end their consequences more quickly, even making excuses to absolve themselves.
As we grow in the Lord becoming more discerning we can tell when someone is authentically sorry or if they are merely wanting the problem to go away.
Problems in relationships do not resolve without dialogue, each person speaking and listening while the offended one confesses. Sometimes both parties need to confess and sometimes only one party did something that needs confessing. In our culture today many people assume both parties are at fault because there has been an argument, this is not always true. The offender needs to own his own stuff without requiring a false confession of their victim. And, no one outside that relationship should pressure the victim to forgive without an offer of confession of the offense. Those who pressure victims to forgive without repentance on the part of the offender are further abusing the victim.
God's example of this is clear in His Word; to repeat the passage;
Psalm 51:16-17 "…16 For You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; You take no pleasure in burnt offerings. 17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise."
When we do things God's way relationships are mended quickly and permanently because the offenders do not repeat their offenses. And, I have experienced this, the heart of the victim is melted, even weeping with the offender as the relationship grows even closer than before.
You see the ideas of the world sound good for momentary happy feelings but they are superficial at best without substance and unable to permanently resolve things between two people.
If you want the real solution with lasting effects be willing to wait for things to happen the right way. If one party will not do it the right way, that is refusing to confess or refusing to forgive after confession, then there is nothing more we can do, it must be left with God. If "temporary feelings" are the goal over lasting and permanent fixes, we create a culture that is never close to anyone nor is anything resolved. It's a society of pretending, no one grows to become better because the lessons learned from confessing and forgiving the right way are absent.
Let's not just buy into all the trite sayings psychology has perpetrated on our world and begin to dig deeply into God's Word to find the real and lasting solutions. This will take patience, time and prayer. Nothing worth doing is done quickly or for the purpose of superficial meaningless feelings.
Feelings are the more shallow part of our being, they cause more trouble and violate more scripture than they help.
One day as I was watching a sad part of a movie I began to feel like weeping over what was happening. Get this please, I felt like weeping over something that was not real, merely a story someone acted on the screen. This is why we cannot trust our feelings, they are responses to stimuli not facts. Feelings are not facts, they often defy the facts and muck up chances for good and real dialogue that could bring truth and resolve matters.
If we would just remember that "feelings" are not facts, that they often lie to us and are based on our own desires rather than reality, we would be far better off.
I have known people to make up lies about someone they disliked, making guesses they wanted to believe about that person and passing them along as facts. They had convinced themselves of things that were not true about the one for whom they had contempt even though none of it was true.
The Pharisees did this with Christ when they accused Him of doing miracles by the power of the devil. Families do this with one another, business people do it, neighbors do it and everyone else in between when they don't particularly care for someone. Born-again believers ought never to assume things about someone, we must always have hard facts and personal witness for any judgments we make about others.
Confession and Forgiveness are two sides of the same coin, both must be present for a relationship to be reconciled. It is laziness to avoid speaking our grievance as well as laziness to refuse to confess a transgression to the one who was offended.
We live in a lazy culture that just wants to sweep dirt under the rug without dialogue or just as bad pummel someone who has offended without discussing the problem with them.
Doing things God's way is hard work needing lots of humility, love, and the power of the Holy Spirit to accomplish. If we love someone we will be willing to do the embarrassing and difficult things to make things right. Doing things God's way takes faith, do we have enough faith to obey God's way?
1 Peter 3:14
"14 But even if you should suffer for the sake of righteousness, you are blessed. And do not fear their intimidation, and do not be in dread,"
Confronting someone who has offended is a risk, it could mean the end of the relationship if they do not admit their offense. Do we love them enough to fight for the relationship through confronting them.
James 4:17 "So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin."
4. James 1:22 "But be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves."
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