If You Can't Forgive Others Then You Can't Fully Love Anyone

Mike Hosey, Elder

Truth is sometimes noticed and practiced by even pagans and non-believers (Matthew 5:47). Consider the following quote from a decidedly non-Christian thinker: "Without forgiveness, life is governed by an endless cycle of resentment and retaliation."

You probably know that truth yourself if you've spent any reasonable amount of time evaluating your life and experiences. If you haven't forgiven someone, then you are very likely mired in either resentment, or even hatred of that person, or you are either openly, secretly, or unconsciously scheming to execute retribution, or to exact revenge. Such a state of mind is the opposite of love. You cannot love someone and not forgive them. Therefore, forgiveness is an act of love.

And it is a fairly difficult act of love because it means relinquishing any claim you have on punishment for a particular person. In effect, forgiveness means deciding to no longer hold a particular sin against a particular person. This "holding back" is so difficult that another non-Christian thinker, Mahatma Gandhi, noted that, "the weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is an attribute of the strong." He was right. As a true act of love, forgiveness is a true act of selflessness. It does, however, have benefits for the self.

If you can, get your mind around this: If everyone is made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27), and if we are to love others as we love ourselves (Matthew 22:39), even those who don't deserve it (Matthew 5:44), then when we choose not to forgive someone, we are creating a resentment for an image of God, instead of working to bring that image to its proper glory. And since we are disobeying God because he has told us to love them (Matthew 5:44), we are not loving ourselves very well either, because loving ourselves means being committed to our own wellbeing, and our own wellbeing is always best seated in obeying the will of God.

A few paragraphs ago, I stated that you can't love someone and not forgive them. I'll now add to that. If you can't forgive others, you can't fully love those closest to you who don't need your forgiveness, because there will always be a piece of you devoted to resentment and hate. If you want to live a life of real love, if you want to love your family and your friends to the fullest extent possible, then you must learn to forgive others.