Don’t you love it when someone brings up something that you did decades ago and reminds you of a mistake that they refuse to put behind them? No! You don’t love it! You likely are hurt by the reminder, frustrated by the blast from the past and long for the time when it is forgotten.
Here’s a question to consider: As much as we wish others would give us a break for past mistakes we have made, do we give them that same courtesy? Jesus taught, “And just as you want men to do to you, you also do to them likewise” (Luke 6:31). Give some thought to what the Bible teaches.
Jesus occasionally reflected on a truism that states: “A prophet is not without honor except in his own country, among his own relatives, and in his own house” (Mark 6:4). The reason that a prophet cannot find honor in these places is often because these folks remember his behavior from years gone by and have a hard time letting it go. Do we hold a person’s past against him unnecessarily and unfairly? Do we appreciate it when others do that toward us?
Consider the example of the apostle Paul toward John Mark. Mark was the cousin of Barnabas (Col. 4:10), and he travelled with Paul and Barnabas on their first missionary journey (Acts 12:25). However, he turned back from “the work” on that journey (Acts 13:13; 15:38). Paul “insisted that they should not take” him on the second journey, which led to a sharp “contention” with Barnabas (Acts 15:37-39). However, by the end of the book of Acts, John Mark was a companion of Paul again (Phile. 24) and became “useful to [Paul] for ministry” again (2 Tim. 4:11). What happened? We see growth, perhaps on both sides, as Paul did not forever penalize John Mark for his past choices.
When the Holy Spirit moved Paul to describe the nature of agape love, one key component is that love “does not take into account a wrong suffered” (1 Cor. 13:5, NASB). The “wrong suffered” probably still hurts, but when a Christian refuses to be “selfish” and chooses to “look out…for the interests of others” (Phil. 2:3-4), he is willing to forgive. But why would he do that?
God’s people are instructed to be “forgiving,” “even as God in Christ forgave you” (Eph. 4:32). Not only is our forgiveness from God contingent on our forgiving others of wrongs they have done against us, but God’s standard of forgiveness is to be ours. While it is hard to forget what another has done against us, our model Forgiver “will remember no more” the sins and lawless deeds that we commit against Him (Heb. 10:17). God does not perpetually hold our past against us! So, who are we to do what God Himself will not do?