In and Within 16 Matters of the Heart, It's the Heart That Matters

[HKHaugan]

Second, forgiveness for our heart.

“Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.”

It’s one thing to believe we ought to forgive. It is quite another to actually forgive. The first is a mind issue, the second is a heart and spirit issue.

How many times don’t we use the word ‘heart’ to describe what we sense deep within us? It is the heart that makes us aware we lack something so basic that we use words like, ‘yearn’ ‘hunger’ ‘desire’ and are reminded by the two disciples on the road to Emmaus who told how their hearts ‘burned within’ as the risen Jesus talked to them (Lk.24:32).

The key to forgiveness is repentance which means to literally turn our mind and heart around from self to God, from knowing I am a sinner to accept God is always Holy and right. It’s to turn from fear to faith, from anger to patience, from judgment to love and from my will to His will. Repentance is to realize our heart’s real condition and give it over to God.

It is the heart where we are tied to our emotions and talk about how deeply we ‘feel’ about some issue or person or event. We talk about how we let ‘our emotions get away from us,’ how depressed we get when… or how things ‘got out of hand’ and we said ‘I don’t know what got over me.’ Then there are those deep unexplainable situations we get into that cause remorse, resentment and regret. Who can remove the guilt we sense as we look back over our lives and have to admit within that we were the party of wrong? At some point we must face the fact of sin, that nagging gnat that continues to fly around the heart within and face the fact we don’t have the ability to swat it without help from without. That move of repentance, moving out from pride to submission, from self to God, is a way of life. Repentance is a lifestyle where we know His will has to become ours.

The heart is the seat of the will, the choices, the decisions, the driving processor of who we really are. Jesus could not have been more accurate when He located the deep fissure in our personal being, “What comes out of a man is what makes him ‘unclean. ’For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man ‘unclean (Mk.7:20-23).” If that doesn’t nail the condition of the heart that moves apart from God, nothing will. No one is innocent. As Paul rightly notes, “There is no one righteous (Rom.3:10), all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Rom.3:23).” There is never a need not to repent.

It is the Savior whose heart was broken on the Cross by taking on the sinful aloneness of mankind (He who knew no sin became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God. 2Cor.5:21), His heart willing to endure an undeserved death, gave us those heart wrenching words of hope as He was dying, “Father forgive them for they don’t know what they are doing.” The Father responded by raising His perfect innocent Son Jesus from the dead to show that He answered His Son’s request for each of us, that by the simple act of repentance, asking for forgiveness, we get it.

Here are some questions repentance will get us to ask, “Am I willing to believe Him, to trust Him and to have faith in Him? That is to believe in Him with my mind, trust Him in my heart and have faith to act for Him in my spirit? The deeper question to which these point is this, “Am I willing to accept His forgiveness to the point that I am willing to forgive others when they have wronged me?” Here is why Jesus tells the parable of the servant whose debt his king mercifully cancelled but who in turn was unmerciful to those who owed him (Mt.18:21). It challenges us to look at our hearts as we deal with others. The forgiveness of God is seen, felt and experienced in how deep we have allowed His forgiveness to penetrate us.

Now we need to ask a more probing question of this teaching, “What are the debts He is talking about?” Remember, we are talking about the foundational shaping of all action as spiritually inspired, therefore spiritual debt. It is an attitudinal word that covers every kind of debt, what we owe not only financially but who and what we are morally, ethically, intellectually and emotionally. Our attitude needs reshaping as Jesus rightly teaches since attitude is the spiritual shape of our heart.

Here’s how He says we can reshape our attitude. Consider the Cross and then, looking through it, consider what we owe that we can never repay. It is at the Cross we realize He already took our obligations in every area and paid for them with His Blood. So as we embrace His attitude we are embracing the full force of His loving forgiveness. How can we do anything less when He says that the most important obligation is to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and our neighbor as ourselves? Always keep the following thought in mind and in the heart, God will never ask of us anything for which He won’t provide the power to do. For our heart-shaping attitude He gives us His Holy Spirit to be our advisor in every next moment. Everything else follows and will follow as we yield the moment, every next moment, to Him. We are His instruments, His vessels, His servants to bring in the Kingdom of hearts, His Kingdom, on earth, as it already exists in Heaven.

How is forgiveness practiced? Three ways: the first is to see every one with whom we come in contact as an image of God and that means regardless of what they believe. We are the contact point with God for them. How they see us respond to whatever they do or say will tell them in whom and in what we believe.

Second, the way a person acts and speaks will give us a clue as to what made them think and act to be the way they are. For us that means patience. “Be quick to listen and slow to speak as Proverbs 18:13 cautions, “He who answers before listening—that is his folly and his shame.” We listen and we observe before we respond recognizing any moment of contact is a spiritual moment demanding a spiritual response.

Third, any moment is a moment that can be given to the Lord in prayer asking for the power to respond in the Spirit as you believe the Lord would respond. Here Jesus’ words make sense. “Judge not and ye will not be judged; condemn not and ye shall not be condemned; forgive and you will be forgiven (Lk.6:37 KJV).”

So then, who are our debtors? Right up front we need to understand that no one owes us anything spiritually. That means we cancel three things, our expectations of God, our expectations of others, and our expectations of ourselves. All that is owed is our love of God and one another. Even there He provides the example in Jesus and the power of Jesus to do what He wills through His Holy Spirit. This is how all the Law and the Prophets are fulfilled. It is a moment-by-moment submission to the Spirit. Now we have a handle on what Paul means when he says, “I have planted, Apollos watered but God gave the increase (1Cor.3:6 KJV).”

Forgiveness then is our heart builder and His Kingdom builder. So here’s one way I am led to pray, “Heavenly Father forgive me what I owe you---the obligations to love I have not fulfilled, my failure to yield in the Spirit, my trying to take control of my life without you, neglecting to read your Word and let it guide my daily walk, taking you for granted, letting my feelings be the lord of the moment, letting resentments and guilt shape my attitude, avoiding taking up my cross at the moment of choice, believing but not trusting, trusting but not acting in faith and lacking the courage to be humble before you in the presence of others. And when I try to win an argument, push my will above the will of others, proceed with my agenda regardless, act out of fear, justify my being right when I am wrong or don’t know, when I act out of pride and not love, when I expect others to be obligated to act the way I think they ought to, when I think I’m right---all of it Lord, please forgive me. Further O Father, fill me with your Holy Spirit that I may be sensitized to the moment there is that call to love, to be open to your will, to let every next moment be your moment, that my obligation to be completely yours never ceases. I ask it through the Lord Jesus, in the consciousness of His Cross upon which He died in my place and in the Holy Spirit who graciously convicted me that I should yield it all to you. Amen.”