Have you been betrayed, falsely accused, mocked, physically abused? How can you forgive the people who inflicted this suffering on you? Why should you even forgive them?

Stories of forgiveness fill the Bible:

• Esau forgave his brother, Jacob, who cheated him out of his birthright.
• Joseph forgave his brothers, who threw him into a pit in the wilderness and then sold him into slavery.
• King David showed kindness and honor to the grandson of King Saul, who tried to murder David.
• As he was being stoned, Stephen asked God not to hold that sin against the men who were killing him.
• Jesus was betrayed, falsely accused, mocked and physically abused.Yet from the cross, he forgave the men who crucified Him.

How can we achieve such a biblical level of forgiveness?

First, don’t play God.  Trust Him to handle the situation instead of you.  He alone is the judge.  He alone knows all the details of what happened and how it fits into His plan.  He alone avenges, if avenging is necessary.  Don’t repay evil with evil.

Second, don’t stuff your hurt down inside.  Speak to the person, and tell him or her how you have been hurt.  Otherwise, bitterness will poison your soul.  Don’t worry about how the person is going to respond.  That’s irrelevant.  You have to state how you feel and rebuke him or her.

Third, look for the good in the situation, for how God is using it to accomplish good, even if it’s behind the scenes.  This builds understanding and aids healing.

Fourth, give grace to those who have hurt you.  If they’re afraid you’ll repay evil with evil, let them know you won’t.  If they have a need, provide for them.  Speak kindly to them.  Letting go of the pain and bitterness you feel is a blessing to you as well as to them.

This doesn’t mean you have to keep yourself open to being hurt by them again and again.  God doesn’t want you to go on being abused.

But God does want you to forgive.  This is the answer to why we should forgive.

Forgiveness isn’t optional.  It’s a divine command.  When Peter asked Jesus how many times he should forgive someone, Jesus responded that Peter should forgive “seventy-seven times” (Matthew 18:22).  Peter was to forgive over and over and over and…

Jesus also commanded “in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you” (Matthew 7:12).  Have you ever wronged another person?  Do you want to be forgiven?  If so, how can you ask for forgiveness while withholding it from someone else?

Through Jesus’ death on the cross, God has forgiven us eternally for our sins, for all the ways we have disobeyed and hurt Him.  The price of our forgiveness was His Son, who carried our sins to the cross and left them there as he died.  For that reason, the apostle Paul states in Ephesians 4:32, Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another, just as in Christ God forgave you.

The messages and articles below dive deeper into forgiving.