The Hardest Thing We Do Together

The Road to the Cross: A Lenten Journey of Surrender and Hope | Day 26

“Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” — Ephesians 4:31–32 (NIV)

Rise and shine, beloved in Christ! A new morning brings with it a new opportunity to receive God’s grace and, perhaps even more challengingly, to extend that same grace to someone who has wounded us. Of all the things God calls us to do together as a community of faith, forgiveness may be the most demanding. It is also, when we allow Christ to work it through us, one of the most powerfully transforming.

There is a particular pain that belongs only to wounds inflicted by people we trusted. A stranger’s unkindness stings, but the hurt fades. When a fellow believer, a friend, a family member, or someone in our own congregation causes us harm, the wound cuts far deeper. We did not expect it there. We let our guard down. We believed we were safe. And so the betrayal, the careless word, the broken confidence, the misuse of trust, carries a weight that ordinary hurt does not.

Paul’s letter to the Ephesians gives us one of the most direct and complete pictures of what forgiveness in Christian community actually looks like. In Ephesians 4:31–32 (NIV), he writes: “Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” Notice that Paul does not begin with the command to forgive. He begins with a list of what must be released first: bitterness, rage, anger, slander, malice. These are not just sinful attitudes. They are the accumulated weight of unprocessed hurt, and they are the very things that make genuine forgiveness feel impossible when we try to manufacture it through willpower alone.

What Forgiveness Is Not

Before we can embrace what forgiveness truly is, we need to be honest about what it is not. Forgiveness is not pretending the harm did not happen. It is not minimizing the injury or forcing a false peace before the wound has been honestly named. It is not the same as trust, which must be rebuilt over time through consistent and changed behavior. And it is not a feeling that arrives on demand the moment we decide we ought to forgive.

Forgiveness is a decision of the will, empowered by the Spirit, to release someone from the debt they owe us and to refuse to hold their offense as a permanent barrier between us. We perform it not because the other person has earned it, but because we ourselves have been forgiven a debt we could never repay. Luke 7:47 (NIV) captures the connection beautifully when Jesus speaks of the one who has been forgiven much loving much. The depth of our capacity to forgive others is directly tied to how deeply we have received the forgiveness God has given to us.

The Weight We Were Never Meant to Carry

Unforgiveness is a burden that masquerades as power. When someone wounds us, holding onto the offense can feel like a form of justice, a way of making them pay by keeping the account open. But the person who suffers most from an unforgiving heart is not the offender. It is us. Bitterness, left unaddressed, grows roots that spread quietly through every corner of the heart. It colors how we see others, how we receive God’s grace, how freely we worship, and how openly we love.

In Romans 12:17–19 (NIV), Paul addresses this tendency directly: “Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord.” The invitation here is profound: we are released from the impossible burden of being our own avenger. Justice belongs to God. Our calling is to pursue peace, as far as it depends on us, and to trust that God sees everything we have experienced and holds it all with perfect wisdom.

This is not passive resignation. It is active, faith-fueled release. When we choose to stop carrying the weight of another’s offense, we are not letting them “win.” We are refusing to let their sin continue to hold power over our hearts. Second Corinthians 2:10–11 (NIV) gives us a striking reason to take forgiveness seriously: “Anyone you forgive, I also forgive. And what I have forgiven—if there was anything to forgive—I have forgiven in the sight of Christ for your sake, in order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes.” Unforgiveness is not merely a personal struggle. It is a foothold the enemy uses to divide and damage the community of believers. Forgiveness, then, is not only a gift to the one who offended us. It is a protection for the entire body.

The deepest motivation for forgiveness in Christian community is always the same: Jesus Christ, who stood before every debt we had accumulated, every wound we had inflicted and every wound we had carried, and bore all of it willingly on the cross. He did not forgive us because we deserved it. He forgave us because His love is greater than our sin, greater than our history, greater than anything we could do to exhaust it. That same love, living in us through the Holy Spirit, is the only power sufficient to do what human nature cannot manage alone. When we extend forgiveness, we are not drawing on our own reserves of patience or virtue. We are channeling the inexhaustible grace of the One who forgave us completely and first.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, I come before You this morning carrying the weight of offenses I have not yet been willing to release. I confess that unforgiveness has taken up space in my heart that belongs to You, and that I have sometimes mistaken bitterness for justice. Forgive me for withholding from others what You have so freely given to me. I know that I, too, have caused harm, and that Your forgiveness of me was not something I earned or deserved. Help me to receive that truth so deeply that it loosens my grip on what I have been holding against others.

Lord, I cannot manufacture genuine forgiveness on my own. I ask for the power of Your Spirit to work in me what my will alone cannot accomplish. Where there is a wound that needs naming, give me the courage to be honest before You. Where there is a relationship that needs repair, open a door in Your timing. And where the hurt runs too deep for easy resolution, sustain me with the truth that You are my defender, and that releasing this burden to You is not weakness but faith. Thank You for Jesus, who bore far more than I will ever be asked to carry, and who carried it for me. In His name I pray, Amen.

Whatever wounds you carry today, you do not have to carry them forever. The God who calls us to forgive is the same God who supplies every ounce of grace needed to do it. The community He has placed around you is a community of fellow recipients of mercy, every one of whom stands on the same level ground at the foot of the cross. That shared need is not a weakness. It is the very ground on which genuine, lasting love is built.

Pray, praise, and give thanks, for God is good and His mercy endures forever.

To God be the glory.

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