Forgiveness 1.0.

Forgiveness is the means by which we become a new creation.  Christ makes us new by his forgiveness.  Accepting this forgiveness, accepting Jesus Christ himself allows us to shed our former self.  When we see Jesus for who and what he really is, we are made new.  When we accept Jesus, this happens once and for all, however we are not done.  Rather, once in his grasp, it is clear that he is not done with us.  We have much to shed, and if we look to him and what he has done for us we may continually grow into our real self, the version of us that God has always intended us to be.  We may forgive others only when we know that we have been forgiven, otherwise it is only pretense.

When we forgive others we are releasing them from the barriers that are preventing them from shedding a dying version of themselves.  It is by the Christ is in us that we are helping them become new.  Each time we can forgive in his name, we too shed a decaying version of ourselves, and step into a new version that is closer to Jesus himself.  A person that stands before you in need of forgiveness is not the person that hurt you.  However, this person must wear the sins of their former self like a rotting carcass, aching to be released.  If you can release them, you acknowledge the new version and choose to interact with this new version and choose to let the old version fade.  If you say you forgive, yet keep interacting with the former, still angry, still hurt, it's like keeping a dead body around.  It will only rot, smell and prevent anyone from moving on.  In the same way, a person that keeps going back to a former version of themselves invites death and cannot be released.

Within the beautiful tension of Christianity we have the concept of Forgiveness.  It is the primary means by which heal and are healed.  The paradox that hinders us is this:  those that need forgiveness may not be able to become worthy of  forgiveness until after they have been forgiven.  I will never be worthy of Christ's forgiveness, however I cannot come close to healing and useful until I have accepted this forgiveness.  We Love because he first Loved us.

2 Corinthians 5  

14For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. 15And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

16So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come:^a The old has gone, the new is here!18All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21God made him who had no sin to be sin^b for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.