how do we know our forgiveness is sufficient?

[distracted]

1. You do not have to have anything to do with the person if you do not want to and can stay away from that person without doing harm. The one poster *had *to continue dealing with his ex-wife because they had a child together, and his staying away from her would have hurt his son, other other because it was her sister. But sometimes for our own protection we need to minimize or eliminate time with a relative as well, as long as it does no harm.
2. It is very normal for the pain of a hurt or betrayal to come back to us, and then we have to go through the process of forgiving over again. In the same way, sometimes the shame of something that we have done comes back to us, even after we have confessed it.

If when the pain and anger come back to you, you pray for the person and offer up your pain to Christ, then you are *willing *to do what is right.

Think of the pain and anger returning like that as a temptation. You are being tempted to do something wrong, like not forgive that person or maybe even committing a wrong against that person. Do your thoughts linger over your anger? Do you think about taking revenge? These types of thoughts can be sinful if you *decide *to “entertain” them. But if when you get angry all over again, which is totally normal, your thoughts turn to forgiveness and praying for the other person, then you are doing the right thing.

i realize all that… its basic Christianity… When i get angry … well… mainly what i do is ask mysself over & over… How can a person do this kind of thing?? i mean i get mind-boggled… maybe its just intellectual curiosity @ this point… cuz i really cannot u/stand someone acting tht way … esp when this person (Imp, i will call the person)… is supposed to be a Christain… goes to Church… but i have been trying 2 figure this person out for years… & just recently figured it was a waste of time… i mean usually i can get some kind of clue of where someone is coming from… but that’s kinda hard to do when the person doesn’t even let you know… stuff from the past and all that… doesn’t want to talk about anything except superficial stuff…

I guess i have this attitude that there is no excuse for certain behavior… but you know… apparently God does too… If you read the OT… he didn’t make excuses for evil… but nowadays with all the psychology and all that… there are excuses galore… The New T is not that different either…

but it doesn’t matter cuz i dont have to be around this person… i can forget Imp exists… and most of the time that’s exactly what i do…

 

[distracted]

I won’t apologize for writing what you need to know. And you can take out your anger on me if you want–it’s all right. People often do “hit back”, so to speak when the truth hits too close to home. You started a thread on a public forum. If you didn’t want advice/counseling you needn’t have bothered. But since you did, I responded, and I responded correctly. You need to heed what those with many years experience have to say to you. That’s how we learn and grow. Accusing me of things I never implied or wrote isn’t going to help you. Only you can help you by doing what is right and good. That’s all I have to say.

yeah i get that a lot at CAF… I am right and you are wrong… you need to grow up… i don’t…

whatever…

see ya…

 

[Simeon_Hovey]

This is a great subject!

First I want to make clear that I never was and am not a saint.

I think that first and fore most I had to truly want to be a Christian.

I am a 57 YO male whose made it to living in what I call: the land of the forgiven. I just discovered this thread and am not fully prepared to give an answer that does justice to your insightful question. So the following is off the top of my head

Looking back on my life I can see that Christ has been calling to me since I was a child.

One of my biggest break throughs was how I read the NT, which was to interpret it as being written with the love of God and Jesus, in other words I no longer read it with guilt but with the loving guidance, which was revealed, to me by the Holy Spirit. Luke 18:2 about the hard hearted judge was a great motivation to me, it told me that I have to keep trying and trying… This parable has been a singularly motivating force; Luke:18 1 – 5. “And he spoke a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint; There was in a city a judge, who feared not God, neither regarded man: And there was a widow in that city; and she came unto him, saying, Avenge me of my adversary. And he would not for awhile: but afterward he said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man; Yet because this widow troubles me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she wearies me.” This tells me that I have to keep trying… Thus I began climbing the Sierra Nevada mountains in winter* searching for God, studying the word, learning to let go of my biases so that the spirit can guide me. (*Don’t do this unless you know what you are doing.)

However I think the single most important thing I’ve done is to work on diminution of my ego so that I finally learned to pray and leave self (my will and desires) out of my prayers. The more I eliminated self from prayer the greater became the Lord’s ability to answer my prayers. Meaning as I’m learning to stop telling Christ what I want for a prayer outcome the greater have become the answers to my prayers and I now live a happier, more settled life (in the midst of all that life brings) than I ever have before.

Part of this learning curve was and is that what the Lord wants me to do usually isn’t what I want to do.

There are two things Jesus said which scare me in the way when I walk across the high country and deserts that I am scared of rattlesnakes: that I will be judged with the measure I judge and I will be forgiven in the measure that I forgive.

The two Greatest Commandments are my corner stone, I learned that the reason I first had to love God was in order to learn what Godly love is before I could try to love my neighbor. Also, the Greek word used here for love is agape or agapao meaning an unbreakable good will and well wishing.

 

[Simeon_Hovey]

Also 1 John is the best description of how and what it means to be a Christian of all the epistles. (In my opinion. I say this because it is pithy and succinct, some 2 – 3 pages)

This isn’t to say that I don’t still fall short of His path for me; however 1 John tells me this is going to happen through out my life and that Jesus is the advocate for me and the propitiation of my sins.

I’ve had to learn that my life is not my own and that my time, 7x24, belongs to Christ. Of course the Lord understands our individual circumstances as some of us have families, are new or young Christians, some are old and infirm &etc. It’s what we do with what have, which is another way of saying what John says in 1 John 3:17 “But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother have need, and shuts up his heart of compassion from him, how dwells the love of God in him?”

Once I was standing in line at the library with an armful of books to checkout when I noticed a flyer from the county for volunteer tutors to teach people to read. At that moment I felt appropriate guilt, here I was going to read 4 – 5 books and there were (are) people out there that are illiterate; so I became a reading tutor for the county. Once a student said to me, “Because of you I actually read a book.” This remark made me feel better than anything I’d ever experienced. But I had to take it in the context that I am a vessel of Christ and but for Him I could have accomplished nothing; thus all the glory and praise goes to Jesus (so that it doesn’t go to feed my ego). My reward though was more immense than any other high I’ve ever felt – to have played a role in the direction of a man’s life.

I’ve read the OT cover to cover 3 times, and from Genesis - Job about10 times. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve read the NT until I knew (know) what it says.

Having become permanently disabled I have the time to study the Greek language and found, fore instance, that the Greeks have multiple words in the manuscripts for sin whereas in English we have only the one word – sin. In some cases the Greek (and Hebrew words for) sin mean nothing more than a ticket for a taillight running up through worse sins and of course there are words for the most horrible of sins. Thus much of the meaning is based on context and subtleties in the Greek that doesn’t always come through in the English. Of course there are other places in the text that have translation problems but I mention this one because I think it’s one of the words that troubles us the most.

The above, for the vast majority of Bible readers/Christians, illustrates how critical it is that our spiritual leaders, be they priest, minister, pastor or preacher exemplify the word and spirit of God.

Living in The Land of the Forgiven has taken me a lifetime; I wish I had gone easier on myself than I did along the way because Jesus was/is far more forgiving of me than I was. Along the way there have been “shortcomings” (one meaning of the word sin) in my life that took years to root out. The thing is that no matter what happens or how badly I fail, I must sincerely seek to right my wrongs, seek forgiveness and then get going on the Lord’s path again.

You will know when you are there because the manifest evidence of the Holy Spirit, Jesus and God in your life will confirm this. I say this because things like the Holy Spirit are very real, and I can in no other way account for how my life has changed from one of almost total self-centeredness to who I am today.