Introduction
Lysa TerKeurst admits that she spent over a thousand hours studying forgiveness in the Bible with a theologian; and that for about 750 of those hours, she was looking for the loophole. She wanted to believe that God did not really require forgiving everyone. What she ultimately discovered is that forgiveness is an absolute command from God, but that it is not the same as reconciliation. This message is translated from an English-language sermon by Lysa TerKeurst, preached at Elevation Church, in which she shares how she went through an unwanted divorce after nearly twenty-nine years of marriage, and how God led her step by step to forgive what she could not forget.
Message Outline
1. Forgiveness is a command; reconciliation is conditional
- Lysa TerKeurst shares that in her research, she long hoped to find an escape clause from the command to forgive. She found none: God does call us to forgive everyone.
- But reconciliation is conditional. God does not ask us to stay close enough to those who use or mistreat us for them to keep doing it.
- Forgiving does not mean "what you did is now acceptable." It means "I choose to stop suffering because of what you did to me."
- Forgiveness is not a ticket given to the other person to keep hurting you. It is an act of obedience that gives you back your freedom.
2. Every wound is made of two things: the event and the impact
- Lysa TerKeurst describes her appointment with her counselor Jim, where he asked her to write down on index cards, one by one, everything that had hurt her. The entire floor of his office ended up covered with cards.
- Jim then told her what no one else had dared to say: "What was done to you is terrible. It never should have happened." Those words began to soften something inside her.
- Every trauma has two parts: the event of what happened, and the impact it produces in you. Forgiveness can also be experienced in two stages.
- You can forgive by obedience to God for the event, and at the same time continue walking a healing journey for the impact. A trigger that resurfaces is not a failure of your forgiveness; it is a place where a little more healing is still needed.
3. Forgiveness comes from God, flows to you, then through you
- Lysa TerKeurst long believed she had to grit her teeth and "produce" forgiveness from her own heart. That is not what forgiveness is.
- Forgiveness originates in God. It flows to us because Jesus died on the cross so that we could be forgiven. Then it flows through our lives to reach others.
- We do not have to generate forgiveness ourselves. We cooperate with what God circulates.
- When Jim handed her small squares of red felt, she was able to place them one by one on her cards, saying: "By obedience to God, I choose to forgive this person for the event of what they did." What she saw at the end was no longer the pain, but the work of Jesus Christ.
4. Forgiveness must become a daily habit
- In the Lord's Prayer (Matthew 6:9-15), Jesus places forgiveness at the heart of a prayer he asks us to pray every day. He even insists afterward (vv. 14-15): if we do not forgive others, our heavenly Father will not forgive our offenses. This is not a detail; it is a daily matter.
- Lysa TerKeurst shares that she began to pre-forgive, first thing in the morning, the people who would hurt her during the day. She grasped this idea while listening to a message from Pastor Steven Furtick who used a fence as an illustration.
- Result: when someone comes to deposit an offense, she is no longer obligated to pick it up. She can leave it on the ground.
- Eat, sleep, breathe, love, forgive. That is the normal rhythm of a disciple's life.
5. Without forgiveness, a door remains open to the enemy
- Right after the passage on forgiveness in the Lord's Prayer, Jesus says: "deliver us from the evil one." This is no coincidence. Throughout Scripture, when anger and resentment are not dealt with, the evil one draws near.
- In Genesis 4, before Cain kills Abel, God comes to speak to him and warns: "sin is crouching at the door." Unresolved anger becomes an open door.
- Ephesians 4 repeats it: "Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold." Do not let night fall on an open wound.
- Refusing to forgive does not only cause the heart to suffer; it opens a door for the enemy into our lives.
6. Leave to God what belongs to God
- The great objection to forgiveness is: "What if the person who hurt me gets away with it?" Lysa TerKeurst honestly acknowledges that this is often where bitterness comes back to grab her.
- Galatians 6:7 reminds us that God is not mocked: whatever a person sows, they will also reap. God sees everything, and he lets nothing slip through.
- In the book of Esther, Haman ends up hanged on the very gallows he had built for Mordecai. God's justice follows a path we do not always see.
- Romans 12:19-21 asks us to leave room for God's wrath. Our part: do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
7. Rebel acts of resilience
- Lysa TerKeurst shares that after forgiving, she remained stuck in the impact for a long time. She had begun to shrink her life to the limits of a wounded life.
- She then started what she calls "rebel acts of resilience": every "I can't" and every "I don't do that" became a signal she wanted to defy.
- At the beach, she repaired an ice machine she thought she could not touch. Then she grabbed a board and jumped into the waves, even though she had declared that she "didn't do the ocean."
- It was not a spectacular healing. It was proof, taken from her own life, that she had plenty of life left to live. The best time to forgive is before you are even offended. The second best time is now.
Key Takeaways
- Forgiveness is a command from God. Reconciliation depends on conditions that God himself respects in order to protect you.
- You can forgive by obedience for the event, and let God take the time to heal the impact. A returning trigger does not cancel your forgiveness.
- Forgiveness does not rise up from you: it comes down from God, passes through you, and reaches the other person.
- Praying every day as Jesus taught us means making forgiveness a habit as normal as breathing.
- Refusing to forgive opens a door to the enemy. Overcoming evil with good shuts it.
Personal Application
- Is there a person whose name comes to mind every time forgiveness is mentioned? What would you say to God about that person, out loud, today?
- Have you confused forgiving with staying exposed to someone who is still hurting you? What would God want to adjust in the way you protect yourself?
- Where are you on the journey between forgiving the event and healing from the impact? What recent trigger is God using to show you a place where a little more healing is needed?
- Are you willing to start tomorrow morning by pre-forgiving the people who will hurt you during the day? How would that change your first hour of the morning?
- What "rebel act of resilience" is God asking you to take this week, to refuse to shrink your life to the limits of a wounded life?
Verses Cited
- Matthew 6:9-15 (LSG)
- Genesis 4:2-7 (LSG)
- Ephesians 4:26-32 (LSG)
- Galatians 6:7-8 (LSG)
- Romans 12:19-21 (LSG)
- Esther 7:10 (LSG)
- Hebrews 2:17 (LSG)
- Mark 14:34-36 (LSG)
Further reading
Frequently Asked Questions
Does forgiving mean that what was done to me is now acceptable?
No. Lysa TerKeurst insists on this point: forgiving never means "it's okay." What was done remains terrible, and God himself names it as such. Forgiving means choosing to stop suffering twice; once from what the other person did, and a second time from the bitterness that settles inside you. It is an act of obedience to God, which gives you back your freedom and leaves to God the responsibility of justice.
Am I required to reconcile with the person I forgive?
Forgiveness is a command, but reconciliation is not. God does not ask you to stay close enough to someone who uses or abuses you for it to happen again. You can forgive from a distance, in prayer, without ever restoring a relationship that would put you in danger again. Reconciliation depends on the other person's repentance and on safety conditions that God himself respects.
Why does a wound resurface when I have already forgiven?
Because trauma is made of two things: the event and the impact. You forgave the event; the impact takes longer to heal. When a trigger revives the pain, it is not proof that your forgiveness failed. It is a signal that God, in his mercy, is allowing a piece of the impact to surface for processing now; because if it had all hit you at once, you would not have held up. This message is translated from an English-language sermon by Lysa TerKeurst, preached at Elevation Church, where she shares this lesson learned from her own counselor.
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