So how do we overcome this tension between bitterness and forgiveness?  How do we start to unearth the seeds of bitterness and replace them with the healing herbs of forgiveness?  Maybe your seeds are new and haven’t really started to take root.  Maybe your seeds are full grown Redwoods with roots reaching widely into every facet of your life.  Either way, the process is the same.

1. Start by admitting your bitterness.  Hebrews 12:15 warns us about allowing the seed of bitterness to grow in our lives.  We have to admit that we are bitter.  We have to admit that we’ve been wronged and are the ones responsible for paying the bill!2

1. Begin allowing God’s Word to speak into our lives, especially the passage dealing with forgiveness (ie. Ephesians 4:32, Colossians 3:13).  Start memorizing the Word and meditating on it regularly.

1. Be intentional about choosing a new mindset about forgiveness that places your own pain in perspective (remember, like love, forgiveness is a choice — it’s a mindset we must adopt).  DO NOT  hear me saying that the debt owed you isn’t big or that it is insignificant compared with the debt of others.  It’s impossible to compare hurt.  But both Ephesians 4:32 and Colossians 3:13 command us to forgive, “as Christ forgave us”.  Christ’s forgiveness of our sins is the ultimate bitterness beat down.  Jesus had done nothing wrong.  He stood up and died as your substitution and mine.  He was whipped, beaten, slapped, kicked, punched, spit on, despised, rejected, and thrashed beyond recognition because you and I had been handed a bill we couldn’t pay.  When He died, He settled sin’s payment once for all for any who would turn to Him.  Thus Paul boldly proclaimed in Acts 13:38-39, Therefore, my brothers, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you.  Through Him everyone who believes is justified from everything you could not be justified from by the law of Moses.  In other words, every sin can be forgiven by Christ, including the sin some one committed against you.  Christ is our ultimate example because He is the ultimate forgiver!  To refuse to forgive someone their sin against us is to live as though Christ’s death can pay for our sins, but not for those sins committed against us.  Clearly Jesus warns us about the consequences of holding on to bitterness and being stingy with forgiveness in Matthew 6:14-15:  For 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.

1. Ephesians 2:8-9 is constantly reminding us that forgiveness is not given on a merit system (some people deserve it, some don’t).  God’s forgiveness is given because Jesus broke through the merit system and made a way possible for everyone to be forgiven.  If we are to forgive like Christ, we must stop demanding full payment from others just as Christ did not demand it from us.  As Colin S. McDougall puts it, “All real and perceived wrongs against us must be released to God who alone tests the hearts of men and is able to judge motives.  No punitive response from us is appropriate”.

1. Grow in your praying for those who have left you with a debt to pay.  That person is broken and potentially living in the wastelands of sin and possibly without any relationship with God.  We must choose to ask God to penetrate their lives that they too may come to forgiveness that — regardless if they ever come back to make restitution for our debt! — they would spend an eternity with their creator God.