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This might seem more appropriate for the Doctrinal forum, but please bear with my preference to see it here. I believe that The Way screwed up hugely where forgiveness is concerned and many of us have suffered because of it regardless of their intentions. My intention is to give anyone who would be so inclined as to consider these words the opportunity to do so and I think more people would see it here than in the Doctrinal forum. I personally was devastated by TWI having marked and avoided my son and me, falsely accusing us. I was told that we had been turned over to Satan and that God would not even spit in our direction. Forgiveness has been a huge hurdle for me in my life. Today I'm thankful to report that not only do I faithfully attend the church of my choice, but I was recently voted in as an elder of my church and am invited to teach regularly - ANYTHING I want to share and nobody previews it at all. This invitation came after I was asked to give my testimony (I had to have a discussion to be sure I knew what they meant by the word "testimony") and beginning immediately after that service requests were made of me to speak at a community christian women's event and I've been treated with great respect by "real" clergy people and I'm even included in the ministers' breakfast meetings. What I presented on forgiveness was to an audience of 120 people. My denomination has scholarships available for people like me so now I'm getting to unlearn the wrong teaching I learned in The Way and all the money that The Way kept when they tossed us out (and I know I agreed that if for any reason they kicked us out I would not get it back) doesn't feel like a loss anymore. My denomination is happy to sponsor me in a 3-year theology college that isn't even a requirement for a lay minister license! I just feel it's best for me to take the classes so I have a systematic way to study and unlearn or relearn as I see fit. I'm now getting to do what I set out to do when I signed on for the Way Corps. Talk about restoring that which the locusts have eaten!!! So, forgiveness. Here's what I shared with my congregation this week: Right smack in the middle of the Lord's Prayer is a beautiful treasure. Matt 6:12 And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Jesus was giving an example of how to pray. He didn't just say and forgive us our debts. He didn't instruct them to vainly repeat this exact prayer. This was an example of how to pray. He said And forgive us our debts AS we forgive our debtors. That sets a condition. We're literally asking God to forgive us our debts the same way we forgive our debtors. We're setting the standard we'd like God to forgive us by. The way we treat others has a direct impact on our relationship with God. As long as we harbor unforgiveness toward others we'll never grow spiritually. Unforgiveness is like spiritual junk food - temporarily satisfying but really harmful in the long run. Unforgiveness is like me drinking poison and expecting the one who hurt me to die. Ray Pritchard said in The Healing Power of Forgiveness that there are four different words for forgiveness in the Bible - 3 Hebrew and one Greek words. The first Hebrew word means "to cover" - like using a rug to cover the dirt on your floor. The second one means "to lift and take away" - which happens when you remove a stain from a carpet. The third word means "to pardon" or "to wipe the record clean." The fourth word means "to let go" or to "send away" as when you release a prisoner from jail. When you put these words together you get a graphic picture of forgiveness. God covers our sin, He removes the inner stain, He wipes our personal record clean, and then He releases us from our guilt so we are set free. Hallelujah!!! In Isaiah 44:22 God blots out our sins as a thick cloud. In Jeremiah 31:34 God forgets our sins and remembers them no more. In Isaiah 3:17 God puts our sin behind His back. In Micah 7:19 God buries our sins in the depths of the sea In Psalm 103:12 God removes our sin as far as the east is from the west. Here's what Jesus said about why we should forgive others: Do not judge and you will not be judged. Do not condemn and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven. (Luke 6:37) and If you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. (Matthew 6:14-15) The greatest, most profound statement on this topic in the entire Bible - the finest, purest, brightest example of forgiveness - came from Jesus Himself. When He hung on the cross dying, condemned to death by evil men who plotted to murder Him and produced lying witnesses to convict Him, as He surveyed the howling mob assembled to cheer His suffering, Jesus the Son of God, the One who knew no sin, the only truly innocent man who ever walked this sin-cursed planet, uttered some words that still ring across the centuries: "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing (Luke 23:34). Many of us say, "If only the people who hurt me would show some remorse, some sorry, then maybe I would forgive them.' But that rarely happens and we use other people's inaction to continue in our bitterness, our anger and our desire to get even. Consider Jesus. No-one seemed very sorry. Even as He said those words the crowd laughed, mocked, cheered and jeered. Those who passed by hurled insults at Him. They taunted Him, "If you're the King of Israel, come down from the cross and save Yourself." Let's be clear on this point: When He died, the people who put him to death were quite pleased with themselves. Pilate washed his hands of the whole sordid affair. The Jewish religious leaders hated Him with a fierce, irrational hatred. They were happy to see him suffer and die. No-one said, "I was wrong. This is a mistake. We were such fools." And yet, He said, "Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." This is precisely what we must say if we are going to follow Jesus. We must say it to people who hurt us deliberately and must say it to those who casually and thoughtlessly wound us. We must say it to those closest to us, to our husband or wife, to our children, to our parents, to our friends, to our neighbors, to our brothers and sisters, to our fellow Christians. Some things forgiveness does not mean: It does not mean approving of what someone else did. It does not mean pretending that evil never took place. It does not mean making excuses for other people's bad behavior. It does not mean justifying evil so that sin somehow becomes less sinful. It does not mean overlooking abuse. It does not mean denying that others tried to hurt you repeatedly. It does not mean letting others walk all over you. It does not mean refusing to press charges when a crime has been committed. It does not mean forgetting the wrong that was done. It does not mean pretending you were never hurt. It does not mean you must restore the relationship to what it was before. It does not mean you must become friends again. It does not mean there must be a total reconciliation as if nothing ever happened. It does not mean that you must tell the person you have forgiven them. It does not mean that all negative consequences of sin are canceled. Forgiveness, in its essence, is a decision to refuse to live in the past. It's a conscious choice to release others from their sins against you so that you can be set free. It doesn't deny the pain or change the past, but it does break the cycle of bitterness that binds you to the wounds of yesterday. Forgiveness allows YOU to let go and move on and grow spiritually. Forgiveness isn't an optional part of the Christian life. It is a necessary part of what it means to be a Christian. If we're going to follow Jesus, we must forgive. We have no other choice. And we must forgive as God has forgiven us - completely, freely, graciously, totally. The miracle we have received we pass on to others. We will forgive to the extent we appreciate how much we've been forgiven. The best incentive to forgiveness is to remember how much God has already forgiven us. Think of how many sins He has covered for you. Think of the punishment you deserved that didn't happen to you because of God's grace. Jesus said, "He who has been forgiven little loves little." (Luke 7:47) Your willingness to forgive is in direct proportion to your remembrance of how much you have been forgiven. In order to experience the healing power of forgiveness, we need two things: soft hearts and courage. Some of us have been so deeply hurt by what others have done to us. In response we chose to become hard on the inside to protect ourselves from any further pain. But that hardness has made it difficult for us to hear the gentle call of the Holy Spirit. We need soft hearts to hear His voice. And then we need courage. The timid will never forgive. Only the brave will forgive. Only the strong will have the courage to let go of the past. Mother Teresa said, "It is by forgiving that one is forgiven."

Will we be gathered together? Will we stay here? Do we SIT? Do we think it's all nonsense? Is Jesus God? Or just a man? To some extent - none of this matters. It really doesn't. What will happen, will happen. Regardless of what we believe. We can get so hung up on intellectual arguments, straining at gnats, knowing this or that Greek word. God's "gnat strainer" is finer, tighter meshed, than anything we can construct. It also has bigger holes in it. God doesn't look at our knowledge. He doesn't look at our vocabulary. He doesn't look at our argumentative ability, or our logic, or our reasoning powers. He looks on our hearts. He looks on what we do and say that comes from the heart. He looks at how we treat Him, how we treat others. He looks at the things that are good in our hearts - and the things that are not so good - and teaches us how to overcome or get rid of the bad stuff, like pride, arrogance, and so on. If we bore some basic tenets about God in mind - that he is good always - that he has compassion on all - that he is the Creator and not a magician or worse a magic toy - and if we remembered that Jesus is the embodiment of God's love to us and exemplifies it and sets the standard in heart that we should follow - then so much falls away. It's nice to know intellectual things in our heads (and trust me, I have a great selection of Bibles and study books). We grope after intellectual understanding - but if we don't know, really know, in our hearts - we know nothing.