Forgiving Our Enemy

In spite of the claims of pop psychology,  Biblical forgiveness is never predominantly "for me", even though I may be its primary benefactor. If we seek to forgive another person because we want to feel better, then neither is likely to happen. For a Christian, forgiving others is an existential response to the cross of Christ and to our prior forgiveness in him. It is rooted in humility and gratefulness and is born out of the hard earned recognition that the face of my enemy is also my own face.


And by that I don't mean that "I am my own worst enemy", though in many cases that may be true. Rather, I mean that there is no sin that a person commits that is not protentially in us all. Or to put it another way, we must be able to look into the face of a murderer and see our own murderous heart, as well as looking into the face of our unthoughtful neighbor while seeing our own unthoughtful spirit. When we can get to that point, then our self-righteousness falls away and we cry out for God to have mercy on us both.