Nadia Bolz-Weber is an American theologian, New York Times bestselling author, and Lutheran minister. She served for ten years as the founding pastor of House for All Sinners and Saints in Denver, Colorado.
CLEAR ALL
I gave in, and admitted that God was God.
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Everyone thinks forgiveness is a lovely idea until he has something to forgive.
I think that if God forgives us we must forgive ourselves. Otherwise, it is almost like setting up ourselves as a higher tribunal than Him.
Forgiveness is not a feeling; it is a commitment.
We must not confuse letting go of past injuries with feeling an obligation to let the injurers back into our life. The freedom of forgiveness often includes a firm boundary and loving distance from those who have harmed us.
When forgiveness experts talk in binary language (’You either forgive the wrongdoer or you are a prisoner of your own anger and hate’), they are collapsing the messy complexity of human emotions into a simplistic dichotomous equation.
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People’s sense of self-worth is pivotal to their ability to look clearly at the hurt they’ve caused. The more solid one’s sense of self regard, the more likely that that person can feel empathy and compassion for the hurt party, and apologize from an authentic center.
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Forgiveness is not just a selfish pursuit of personal satisfaction or righteousness. It actually alleviates the amount of suffering in the world.
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Letting ourselves be forgiven is one of the most difficult healings we will undertake. And one of the most fruitful.
And this is one of the most crucial definitions for the whole of Christianity; that the opposite of sin is not virtue but faith.