{"id":44479,"date":"2010-09-20T14:40:00","date_gmt":"2010-09-20T14:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/bitter-man-chooses-to-forgive-longtime-enemy\/"},"modified":"2010-09-20T14:40:00","modified_gmt":"2010-09-20T14:40:00","slug":"bitter-man-chooses-to-forgive-longtime-enemy","status":"publish","type":"sermon-illustrations","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/bitter-man-chooses-to-forgive-longtime-enemy\/","title":{"rendered":"Bitter Man Chooses to Forgive Longtime Enemy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Pastor Matt Woodley writes:<\/p>\n\n<p>My friend Steve warned me that he didn&#39;t believe in forgiveness. &quot;God could never forgive me,&quot; he said. &quot;Okay, maybe he could forgive 70 percent of my sins, but not all of them.&quot; When I tried to explain that when we trust Jesus he forgives 100 percent of our sin, Steve interrupted, &quot;Yeah, fine, but you don&#39;t know the stuff I&#39;ve done.&quot; Then he told the following story:<\/p>\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>Nineteen years ago this guy stole my wife away from me. They got married and moved to Florida while my life unraveled. After I was arrested for assaulting a police officer, this guy smirked through the entire court hearing. When I was convicted, he flipped me the finger. I&#39;ve hated him for nineteen years. He&#39;s coming up here next week, I have a 32-caliber pistol strapped around my ankle, and when I see him I will kill him.&quot; Then he chillingly concluded, &quot;I&#39;ve thought all about it. I&#39;m 63-years-old. I will get a life sentence, but I&#39;ll also get free medical and dental and a warm bed and three meals a day. All of this bitterness and resentment feels so right; forgiveness seems weird.<\/p>\n\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>Steve was right about one point: forgiveness often feels like an unnatural act. So what should followers of Jesus tell Steve? Why forgive?<\/p>\n\n<p>After Steve told me this story, I paused for a long time before I finally stammered, &quot;Well, I guess it doesn&#39;t matter if you go to jail, because you&#39;re already in jail. The guy who stole your wife and smirked at your hearing isn&#39;t in jail. You are. That guy is free, but you&#39;re a prisoner of your own hate; and you&#39;re slowly killing yourself. And unless you forgive, you&#39;ll remain trapped for the rest of your life.&quot;<\/p>\n\n<p>A week later he called me and said, &quot;You know, I get your point. I put the gun away. I don&#39;t want to spend the rest of my life in jail or enslaved to my own hate. Will you pray for me that Jesus will release me?&quot;<\/p>\n\n<p>Forgiveness, like every other aspect of following Jesus, involves a long journey. As we consistently receive Jesus&#39; forgiveness for our sins, it will soften our hearts towards those who have wounded us. Then, as we continue to trust and grow in Christ, slowly, by God&#39;s grace, we&#39;ll find more freedom to forgive than we ever imagined.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[],"tax_ctp_authors":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_format":[171],"tax_ctp_illustration_types":[411],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[446],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_tags":[3499,3867,4010,4118,4124,4174,4397,4504,4810,4831,4836,4996,5038,5228],"tax_ctp_topics":[],"class_list":["post-44479","sermon-illustrations","type-sermon-illustrations","status-publish","hentry","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-bitterness","tax_ctp_tags-enemy","tax_ctp_tags-forgiveness","tax_ctp_tags-hardness-of-heart","tax_ctp_tags-hatred","tax_ctp_tags-human-anger","tax_ctp_tags-love-for-enemies","tax_ctp_tags-murder","tax_ctp_tags-resentment","tax_ctp_tags-retaliation","tax_ctp_tags-revenge","tax_ctp_tags-slavery-to-sin","tax_ctp_tags-spiritual-bondage","tax_ctp_tags-vengeance"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - 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