Radical Forgiveness

Mar 14

John Eldredge

4 min read ⭑

On a practical level, you’re going to need to practice forgiveness far more often than you think.

Someone cuts me off in traffic, and I now say, I forgive you for that. Someone sends me a snarky email, and I say, I forgive you for that. Someone, yet again, fails to come through in what they should have done. I forgive you for that.

Hatred has become so rampant we have to get radical with our forgiving. Forgive everything.

Over the past year, when I have come to Jesus about some offense real or imagined, he says to me, “Forgive everything. Everything.”

Radical Forgiveness by John Eldredge — Deep; Unsplash

He knows the hour; he knows what we must do to stay in his refuge. So I will often say out loud, “I forgive it all. I forgive everything.” There’s so much offense in a single day that you simply can’t keep accounts. And you certainly can’t wait for people to come back around and apologize. Let’s practice a radical holiness (which is refuge) by simply forgiving everything.

I understand that sometimes it takes months, even years, for a person to come around to forgiveness. They might need the help of a therapist. But after the years have passed, they still find themselves where they started — needing to forgive everything. While the therapeutic process can be deeply helpful, the saints of ages past would also encourage you to begin with forgiveness too. Do it now, not later, so that you can come back into the refuge of God’s love and from that safe place work through your hurts.

Stasi and I were shouting it aloud in our living room last night: “We forgive everything!”

Why shouting? Because we could feel the riptide of the under-current of hatred trying to get in through a myriad of offenses, and you don’t talk your way out of this stuff. By shouting “We forgive everything!” we were slamming the door of our hearts shut to the invasion, the poison, and making it clear to the spiritual beings listening that we will give no ground to them.

I will often also command: “I kick all hatred out of my being. Now! In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I kick all hatred out of my being.”

The Internet has worn down our capacity to trust and believe; the constant undermining of yesterday’s facts has made skeptics of us all. Well, the culture of offense and hatred is doing the same thing — it wears love down.

Jesus warned about this when he said,

At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray
and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and
deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the
love of most will grow cold, but the one who stands firm to the
end will be saved. (Matthew 24:10–13)

Love is something we are going to have to firmly protect.

Now here is the problem — as soon as I say the word “love,” many different things come to your heart and mind.

Oh great, now I have to take care of everyone.

I guess I have to let my toxic mom back in.

I don’t get to have my own feelings about this; I just have to let everyone have theirs.

“As we choose to love [God], as we intentionally and deliberately turn our hearts and souls to him in the practice of love on a daily basis, he is better able to rescue us because of the culture of hatred around us. The person swimming away from the lifeboat is harder to save than the person swimming toward it.”

We all have a story of love, how we learned love in the world. Most of those lessons confused our hearts and souls about the nature of love. We need to allow Jesus to heal our story of love as we take refuge in his love. So when I say we need to protect love, I am only talking about love as we see modeled in Jesus Christ. He has the ability to move toward people, move against people, and move away from people as true love guides him.

“And this I pray, that your love may overflow still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment” (Philippians 1:9 nasb). By all means, we need to be discerning in love. Sometimes that means distancing yourself from toxic people, setting healthy boundaries. But never out of cynicism, never in offense, and never in hatred. If love seems to be growing cold in your life, that should get your attention. Rush to protect it. I often pray,

Fill me with your love for this person, Jesus. Fill love in me with your love.

Jesus, I need you to restore love in me.

Protecting love in your heart includes your love for God. Satan hates your love for Jesus and your Father; he will try to poison it. His favorite tools are suffering, chronic disappointment, or something that feels like God has betrayed or abandoned you. You must not let the enemy do this. So I have had to add this to my prayers as well:

I cleanse my love of God with the Blood of Jesus and the River of Life.

Our love gets poisoned by The World and the enemy, and most people have never thought to cleanse it. But the mystic knows that when you do, your love is refreshed and renewed.

“Because he loves me,” says the Lord, “I will rescue him;
I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.
He will call on me, and I will answer him;
I will be with him in trouble,
I will deliver him and honor him.
With long life I will satisfy him
and show him my salvation.” (Psalm 91:14–16)

Safety is in God; the people you find there happen to be the people who love and adore him.

I think God is also revealing to us that as we choose to love him, as we intentionally and deliberately turn our hearts and souls to him in the practice of love on a daily basis, he is better able to rescue us because of the culture of hatred around us. The person swimming away from the lifeboat is harder to save than the person swimming toward it.

God’s love around us is paired with our choices to love, and that makes for beautiful refuge.

John Eldredge is a New York Times bestselling author, counselor, and teacher who has inspired millions to go deeper in their relationship with Jesus. He is also president of Wild at Heart, a ministry devoted to helping people discover the heart of God, recover their own hearts in God's love, and learn to live in God's kingdom. John and his wife, Stasi, live in Colorado Springs, Colorado. To learn more, visit www.wildatheart.org.