Response to Faithfully Magazine on Forgiveness

AD Robles

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Hi, my name is Adam Robles, and today I wanted to respond to an article that I saw from Faithfully magazine

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Faithfully magazine is you know, honestly the best way I can describe it is it's an SJW millennial

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Christian magazine And I know I'm using those words as pejoratives and I do intend to use it as a pejorative

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I don't think this is a very good Magazine, I think it I'm not saying they're not Christians, but the perspective it brings is is absolutely an

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SJW Millennial type perspective. I don't think a lot of the foundations are very Christian However, I I do accept their profession and I think they do try to to spin things in a

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Christian way very many times But but but here's what I mean, let me show you how I found this magazine.

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I I saw this article Whiteness is crippling the church, right and Unfortunately this article it's

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Behind a paywall you have to pay to read it or at least you did at the time I haven't checked recently, but I couldn't bring myself to give them $5 to read this magazine

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I you know, I I was interested enough to want to read it, but I wasn't gonna pay for it

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And so I you know, I don't know exactly know what was written in that article But but any any article that's titled whiteness is crippling the church.

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I have to be extremely skeptical of Because nothing can cripple the church even the boogeyman of whiteness.

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And so anyway, this is an SJW magazine There's just no question about that But I want to review an article that actually doesn't touch on some of these topics

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It's actually a very kind of more universal topic and it's about forgiveness And so let me switch to the screen and I'll show you sort of how this this articles presented

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We're not gonna read the whole thing But here's the article and it's from an opinion piece section of the of the magazine and it's titled you don't have to accept the sorry and Here's the kind of the summary

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Something that has always bothered me as a highly spiritual person is the way that we Christians can bang the forgiveness drum and The point of this article

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I'll let I'll link to it, of course, and I'm not gonna read the whole thing I might read a few sections, but the point of this article is that You know forgiving someone is more than just saying

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I forgive you, right? You have to actually feel forgiveness. And so this this idea that Christians ought to instantly forgive

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Any you know, any any infraction any horrible thing that's happened to them is unrealistic

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You know, it's it's you know, if somebody were to you know hurt you or your family, you know in a violent way or even emotionally

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The idea that you ought to forgive them instantly Hurt her the author's, you know point is that that's unrealistic and it's not even required and so I You know,

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I think she makes some good points. One of the examples that she uses. I'll even you know, take it to the article here

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One of the examples that she uses is with her kids, right? And she says here when my son hurts my daughter

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He'll apologize immediately and when my daughter is upset. I tell her she doesn't have to forgive him until she's ready

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For minutes my son is forced to live with the consequences of his actions He has time to recognize that when you hit someone they may not want to be your friend anymore

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My daughter takes time to realize that she is justified in being upset What my son did to her was wrong and she doesn't have to forgive him just because he feels bad

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Eventually when she is ready, she approaches him with the olive branch That's when I do the normal parent move of hug each other and move on I don't want my daughter to think that forgiveness is a burden someone else can put on her

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I want her to grow up feeling worthy of time and space We don't get to choose how or when people hurt us

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But we do get to choose how and when we are ready to forgive them. Forgiveness is not for them. Forgiveness is for us

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Now there's a lot of good in that paragraph because I think that this idea of let's say the son

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You know smack the daughter or hit her or something like that. So he takes his sister and he punches her in the face and He says he's sorry right away

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Well, first of all, a lot of times that's not necessarily true just because they're saying they're sorry doesn't mean that they are

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So there's no not necessarily real repentance there But if there was real repentance there, right if the son really was sorry

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Is it true that the daughter, the girl has the right to sort of choose and pick and choose how and when she forgives?

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You know in a sense I can kind of see that Yeah, you have to if you're gonna forgive someone you have to really forgive them, right?

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You can't just say I forgive you and then kind of hold on to that bitterness But in a sense you don't

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In a sense you don't and what I mean by that is Jesus says that we ought to forgive 70 times 7 times basically as many times as we need to this is what he means and He also says that we ought to pray to God that he forgive us the way we forgive others and so How how how do we want

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God to forgive us do we want God to forgive us When we repent do we want God to forgive us right then and there

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I would say most people would say yes most people would say yes, but that's the kind of forgiveness that we want from God and That's the kind of forgiveness

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God offers us, right? And it's not just like this forgiveness where it's just cheap where it's like, oh, yeah, you know,

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I just wanted a murder spree Yeah, I'm sorry God Not like that that's not real repentance we're talking it's not unconditional and I think that's another good point that this author makes

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Forgiveness is not unconditional in the Bible. That's very true But once real repentance comes does the person who's been slighted as the person who's been

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Sinned against have the right to withhold forgiveness until some time in the future when they're ready to do it

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I don't think so and and I don't say not they don't have the right from the sinners perspective, right?

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Because from the sinners perspective, they've they're the ones who have done wrong, right? And so they can't demand forgiveness on their terms, right?

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Because that's that's not how it works and I think you know, that's kind of how this article is presenting it It's like this like forgiveness is like this burden that someone else can put on you

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And so if I were to sin against you and you don't forgive me, I'm like, well you owe me the forgiveness That's not how it works.

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It's not like that. And so and so I think in that way this article is true It's not a burden that someone else can put on you a sinner can put on you

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However, it is absolutely a standard that God can require from us and that's where this article

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I think fails Because it's presenting this all from the horizontal level from sinner to sinner from person to person

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Yes, I as if I sinned against you I can't insist that you forgive me because God says you have to forgive me, right?

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I can't make that and that's that's something that I'd be that'd be a further sin of mine for me to for me to do that But still

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God can pull you to the standard. So on the on the vertical from God to man God sets the standard of forgiveness and so you better forgive you better forgive because here's the thing

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Christ's example of forgiveness Christ doesn't hold things over us Christ doesn't wait until he's ready to forgive us

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He's not like oh, yeah. Well, I haven't you know, I I'm just not there yet You know what?

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I mean Christ Christ doesn't say to us. Yeah, you know, you haven't learned your lesson good enough So I'm gonna hold off forgive us.

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No No Christ forgave us once for all time And so when we come to the when we come to the cross when we when we when we've sinned again

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We didn't want you but we did it anyway, and we go God forgive me for what

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I've done God forgives you man. He forgives you right then and there. In fact, he forgave you at the cross

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And so this idea of you know, someone can't hold over forgiveness over you. Well, that's true But God can set the standard and so if you have a problem forgiving if you want to hold on to this this

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This this anger because you feel it's justified like even the article says your angers justified

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Well, that might be true But if you're holding on to forgiveness as you if you're not forgiving as soon as you see the repentance if your brother truly

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Repents and it's not just you know to get off to get away from any penalties or consequences

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It's actual real repentance and you're holding out on forgiveness That's sin You need to examine yourself.

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You need to hope you need to take a good look at the mirror Why am I not ready to forgive this person who's repented?

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Now if the person hasn't repented if they're just sort of like, yeah, I'm sorry forgive me. Well, that's one thing that's different But if a person's really repented and you're holding on to bitterness

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That's that's something you really need to consider, you know, I've been to a church where there's there's a perceived sin issue and The person just refuses to let go

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Refuses to let go and there's been there's been repentance. There's been You know forgiveness all around him, but this one particular person refuses to let go of this perceived slight and it's just killing

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This person it's eating them up from the inside And so that's not that's not how how it works.

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Look if you don't forgive someone who's really repented That's a failure

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That's a failure on your part and you need to really examine yourself. And you know what even if someone hasn't repented, right?

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You can't hold on to the bitterness you just can't hold on to the bitterness and so, you know

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I this article it makes some good points, but You know it at the end of the day. Here's the part that really kind of bothers me about this article

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This last line he says she says so no you don't have to accept their sorry and it doesn't make you a bad person

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Forgiveness is not for them forgiveness is for you If Jesus is the standard if God is the standard that's just not true.

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That's just not true God didn't need anything and that's why he forgave God didn't have this burden.

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And so that's why he forgave God forgave because he just showed us grace and so we ought to show grace and so even if someone doesn't repent

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You know, don't hold on to your anger man. Don't hold on to it You don't have to let them back into the your friendship, you don't have to let them back into the community you know if they're not repenting then that's that's fine, but Don't hold on to the bitterness forgiveness is for you and for them

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But ultimately forgiveness is for God because we need to we need to demonstrate Christ's attitude towards people in how we interact with people.

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And so if forgiveness is for God ultimately Then that's the example.

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That's the standard The last thing I want to say is I really worry about this because it's in an

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SJW millennial article or a magazine rather Because this SJW, you know social justice warrior stuff this this this highly racialized view of the world this sort of critical race theory sort of power

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Dynamics kind of thing This is a recipe for never -ending strife

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This is a recipe for always being offended always being slighted and I worry about an article like this appearing in a magazine like this

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Because you know this this anger That this SJW sort of critical race theory type anger

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It's not always justified number one and number two It will kill you

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You can't hold on to this bitterness forever. You just can't And so, you know,

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I do work really worry about about an article like this appearing in You know in a magazine.

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Yes, forgiveness is required God requires it It's not required from your peers because your peers aren't owed anything

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Fellow sinners aren't owed anything But God is owed something

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God is owed honor and God is owed obedience And so when God says, you know, here's the standard of forgiveness, you know

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That's that's I mean it's just required it's it's more than a goal You see here's the thing a lot of people say yeah, well forgiveness is the goal

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But you know, it's unrealistic to forgive immediately. Well, okay, that might be true Forgiveness is the goal and sometimes it's hard to forgive

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But it's more than the goal. It's the standard it is the standard And so I just would pray for all of us to learn how to forgive better to learn how to forgive quicker and For these relationships and not be looked at as oh someone's holding power over me

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No, it's not like that It's God is requiring something of you. And so anyway, that's just my comments on this article again.

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It's not all bad It's like it's a good article, but I do worry about it. And so hey any questions comment below message me feel free