Forgiveness Is Impossible

All I can say is this is yet another power-packed chapter. If you are reading Choosing Forgiveness by Nancy Leigh Demoss, you are probably wondering, “When is she ever going to give us a break? Is she ever going to lighten up?” Like unforgiveness keeps pounding away at our hearts and minds, DeMoss keeps chipping away at lies the world has fed us.


These are just a few of the quotes from this chapter alone that jolted my attention:

• “Forgiveness isn’t meant to be free and easy. It is hard. It is costly. It is painful”(106).

• “…whatever has happened in your life to cause unforgiveness to well up in your heart, God could have stopped it. But He didn’t”(107).

• “If you’re a child of God, the ordeal you’re undergoing, however wrong or unfair or heartless it may be or may have been in His providence and skillful hands will be used to take you somewhere good – deeper into His heart, to a place of greater dependence and trust, more perfectly refined into the likeness of Christ”(107).

• Forgiveness is impossible. But NOTHING is impossible for God. Forgiveness is an act of God’s grace performed in your heart and through you. You can’t do it on your own.

• Forgiving yourself means accepting God’s forgiveness first. “If God’s forgiveness is not good enough for us, then what’s so special about ours?”(114) “God is your forgiver – your one and only forgiver”(114). “No sin can create a stain too great for God to erase”(115).

There are many walking wounded, many broken people existing in life because they are clinching onto unforgiveness. They have white-knuckled pain so long it has turned into bitterness. God is steadily chipping away you allowing things to come into your life to break you down. He’s allowing things to put chinks in your walls. How bull-headed are you? What is it going to take before God gets your attention to the point that you are ready to meet Him, get real, and get healed? WHAT WILL IT TAKE? Trust me, I’ve been broken. It’s not a fun place to be, but when He finally gets through our thick heads and even harder hearts, He can perform CPR (Christ Performed Restoration). OMGoodness! It is healing. It is cathartic. It is liberating! Don’t you want to be free? Don’t you want to be unburdened? Then you must forgive and receive His forgiveness. You can’t forgive on your own. It is a work that God performs in you. For some of us we have to choose to forgive daily…sometimes moment to moment, but eventually over time, we get there. He gets you there.