Asking for forgiveness from someone I’ve done wrong is something I’ve been led to do many times. It’s part of living as children of God in His Kingdom. Jesus Christ preached on this to the Jewish crowds from a beautiful mountainside overlooking the Sea of Galilee. Matthew recorded this in chapter five. 23 “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, 24 leave your gift there in front of the altar. First, go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.” The altar refers to the Jewish Temple, where Jews brought an offering as a sacrifice to God. It was an act of worship at that time. Today, we might say it like this. “If you are headed out to worship God with other believers in Christ but remember that you have wronged someone, do a U-turn and contact them to ask for their forgiveness.” Why? Because that greatly improves the possibility of reconciliation!
Yet, practically speaking, asking someone to forgive you can be very scary! The most common reason is that we fear the person may not forgive us, think we are crazy, or respond negatively. (All of these are possible, but we are not responsible for how they react. That’s between them and God.)
Asking for someone’s forgiveness is also humbling, putting us in a place where we are willing to let the Holy Spirit show us that we sinned against that person. Often, our struggle is that our flesh is prideful and doesn’t want us to admit we were wrong. Yet, because we are united with Christ, the Humble One, we are humble in our identity. Therefore, we have God’s empowering grace to enable us to be honest about what we did or said.
Once we know our Father wants us to admit to a person what we did, here are some practical things to consider.
- Pray to make sure the Holy Spirit is leading you to ask for someone’s forgiveness.
- Think ahead of time about what you are going to say.
- Don’t apologize only; ask them to forgive you and be specific about what you did.
- Be careful about blaming the person for what you did. This negates everything you said to them and often starts with the word “but.” Then, the person gets offended again.
- If they are unwilling to forgive you verbally, tell them you understand but don’t demand it. That’s between them and God. You have done your part.
- Finally, you don’t want to ask for someone’s forgiveness to simply “people please.” This is about depending on Christ to live through you in the power of the Spirit to please our Father.
Would you take a moment to pray and ask your Heavenly Father to show you if there is someone He wants you to ask for their forgiveness? If so, revisit what I wrote above, then let Jesus show you the timing of following through.
The Lord can help you through our biblical, Christ-centered counseling if you are stuck in this area. Please email us at info@gracelifeinternational.com or call 704-522-9026 to learn more.
