Holding Hands, Not Grudges: The Transformative Power of Forgiveness

There's something profoundly liberating about watching someone's life transform after encountering Christ. Imagine a person who attended church for years without truly believing, then one day feeling an overwhelming urge to pray. In that prayer, something shifted. An acknowledgment of God's existence, Jesus as Savior and Lord, and a heartfelt plea for forgiveness. What followed was remarkable: improved relationships, increased presence with family, deeper engagement in marriage and parenting. This transformation illustrates a powerful truth: a Christ-centered identity gives us greater capacity for strengthened relationships in everyday life.

When Christ stands at our core, we access the presence of the Spirit, the wisdom of God's Word, and a secure identity from which we can humbly grow in our connections with others. This foundation becomes especially critical when we face one of the most challenging aspects of relationships: forgiveness.

Resentments don't appear overnight. They build layer upon layer, often stemming from feeling disrespected, dishonored, or betrayed. Relationships that begin with excitement and close connectivity can gradually drift apart as small hurts accumulate into significant wedges. Even when we physically maintain contact with someone, holding their hand and sharing space, a heart disconnected by resentment creates an invisible barrier.

Holding a grudge is like letting someone live rent-free in your head. They occupy your thoughts, driving you to distraction, keeping you from genuine closeness. This is precisely why Scripture speaks so clearly on the matter.

Leviticus 19:18 could not be more direct: "Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord." 

This isn't a suggestion. It is a command from the Creator Himself.

Jesus emphasized this urgency repeatedly. He taught that if you're bringing a gift to the altar and remember someone has something against you, leave your gift and go be reconciled first (Matthew 5:23-24). If you have an issue with someone, you should be the one to initiate reconciliation. Don't let the sun go down on your anger (Ephesians 4:26). Deal with conflicts quickly, before they develop into those destructive layers of resentment.

When Peter asked Jesus how many times he should forgive someone, suggesting seven times as a generous number, Jesus responded with a startling answer: "Not seven times, but seventy times seven" (Matthew 18:21-22). This wasn't a mathematical limit but an illustration of endless forgiveness. As 1 Corinthians 13 reminds us, "love keeps no record of wrongs" (1 Corinthians 13:5).

Remarkably, studies show that 23-30% of Christians admit there's someone they currently cannot forgive. This reality demands our attention and action.

Commitment to Christ comes with automatic enrollment in what we might call a "frequent forgiver program." It's not optional. It's part of the package. We can choose to disengage, but we do so at our own peril.

One long-married couple, when asked about their secret to decades together, offered this wisdom. The wife said she told her husband there was one thing she would never forgive. Every time he did something wrong, she'd say, "You're so lucky that's not it." They understood that regular, routine forgiveness keeps relationships healthy over the long haul.

Forgiveness isn't tolerance. That passive-aggressive approach where we promise to hide how much someone annoys us. True forgiveness involves two essential commitments: not holding a person's sin against them and releasing the resentment we feel toward them.

This reflects how God treats us. Jeremiah 31 declares, "I will forgive their wickedness and remember their sins no more" (Jeremiah 31:34). We are recipients of this extraordinary mercy, and we're called to extend it to others.

It's important to clarify what forgiveness doesn't mean. It doesn't remove a person's responsibility for their actions or necessarily eliminate consequences. It doesn't require tolerating ongoing bad behavior or automatically reestablishing trust. But neither does forgiveness mean making someone grovel endlessly or insisting they earn their way back into our good graces.

What forgiveness does is face the hurt, commit to move through it, turn the person and their actions over to God, release them from guilt, refuse to retaliate or remind them constantly of their wrongs, and begin expressing kindness again.

As one theologian beautifully expressed it, forgiveness is a profound, costly act of absorbing a debt. When we forgive, we absorb what was done to us and no longer hold it against the offender. This empowers our lives to move forward without being defined by the pain.

Jesus told a powerful story about a servant who owed his master an impossible debt, the equivalent of billions of dollars in today's terms (Matthew 18:23-27). When the servant begged for mercy, the master didn't renegotiate or create a payment plan. He canceled the entire debt.

That forgiven servant then encountered someone who owed him a much smaller amount, significant, but minuscule compared to what he'd been forgiven (Matthew 18:28-30). Instead of showing mercy, he had the man thrown in prison until every penny was repaid.

When the master heard about this, he was furious. "Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?" he demanded, before handing the unforgiving servant over to be tortured until he repaid his original debt (Matthew 18:32-35).

The lesson is unmistakable. Our frustrations with others don't negate God's mission. God's mission is to reconcile through forgiveness and transform us into forgivers. When we appreciate the magnitude of what we've been forgiven, how can we withhold forgiveness from others?

So how do we actually forgive? The journey involves several steps:

Face the wrong and feel the hurt. Denying or dwelling on pain gives it power over us. Acknowledging it honestly is the first step toward healing.

Pray through the process and pray for the person. Lift the hurt before God, who is our ultimate source of comfort. Initially, we might pray that the offender sees their wrong. As we mature, we pray for God's deeper work in their life, developing compassion for what shaped them.

Face the person when possible. With humility and clarity, speak to them about what happened. This isn't always possible, but it's more often achievable than we think.

Commit to forgive. Make the conscious decision to no longer hold their sin against them or harbor resentment toward them.

Rehearse the positive and reach for their hand again. Begin re-engaging from the heart, working toward reconciliation and restoration.

Sometimes this process can't be completed. We cannot do for others what only they can do before God. Some wrongs are so severe, some patterns so abusive, that full reconciliation may never be appropriate.

However, we can still maintain a posture of forgiveness. Releasing the person's guilt against us before God, praying for them, and cultivating understanding and compassion. If they eventually repent, we're ready to reconcile. If they don't, or if restoration would be unwise, we've still done the heart work that frees us from captivity.

Grudges get heavier the longer we hold them. No one reaches life's end grateful they held onto resentment until their final breath. We let go not merely because life is short, but because God is gracious. He motivates us, helps us through each step, and offers freedom.

At day's end, what happens between another person and the Lord is between them. Our place is to stand in freedom, learning not to hold grudges but to keep holding hands, or at least maintaining a posture of openness before God.

The magnitude of our gratitude for Christ's sacrifice should far outweigh any ingratitude we harbor. Today is an opportunity to recommit to that gratitude, to learn to hold the hands of those around us, because we have a God who gave everything through Jesus to hold us in the palm of His hand.

There is so much more to say about what it means to live free from resentment and rooted in forgiveness.

We invite you to watch Pastor Fred’s full message, "Hold Hands, Not Grudges," to explore these truths more deeply and discover how forgiveness leads to freedom, healing, and restored relationships.