Luke 23:34 TPT
While they were nailing Jesus to the cross, he prayed over and over, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they’re doing.” The soldiers, after they crucified him, gambled over his clothing.
Acts 7:54-60 TPT
When they heard these things, they were overtaken with violent rage filling their souls, and they gnashed their teeth at him. [55] But Stephen, overtaken with great faith, was full of the Holy Spirit. He fixed his gaze into the heavenly realm and saw the glory and splendor of God—and Jesus, who stood up at the right hand of God. [56] “Look!” Stephen said. “I can see the heavens opening and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God to welcome me home!” [57] His accusers covered their ears with their hands and screamed at the top of their lungs to drown out his voice. [58] Then they pounced on him and threw him outside the city walls to stone him. His accusers, one by one, placed their outer garments at the feet of a young man named Saul of Tarsus. [59] As they hurled stone after stone at him, Stephen prayed, “Our Lord Jesus, accept my spirit into your presence.” [60] He crumpled to his knees and shouted in a loud voice, “Our Lord, don’t hold this sin against them.” And then he died.
If you are a Christian, that means that you are “in Christ.” To be in Christ means that you have been placed into the life of Christ Himself and the life that He lives. Being in Christ means that He now Lives his life through your life story, and therefore not only are you in union with Christ, but your life story is now in union with His. In a sense, you no longer have an independent life or an independent life story. This is what makes the Christian life so extraordinarily exciting because the life that Jesus lives, and the life in details that Jesus wants to live through you is the most incredible adventure that any human being could ever imagine. The plans that He has that are to be lived out through you are exceedingly, abundantly, beyond anything you could have ever asked or imagined about your future. The enemy will do everything he possibly can to put stumbling blocks in front of you to try to hinder you from simply allowing Jesus Christ to be who He is, live the life story that He wants to live in and through you. I believe that Scripture and life experience makes it very clear that the number one stumbling block at our feet is the behavior of others, and its impact on our lives. The issue of resentment and unforgiveness can destroy the life more abundant that Christ has planned for us.
I love the way the passion translation rights Luke 23:34 because it gets the grammar right. When Jesus said, “Father forgive them for they know not what they are doing,” it is in the imperfect tense, and the imperfect tense is continual action in the past. In other words, all the way up to the moment of crucifixion, Jesus had been repeating those words again and again in response to the pain and offense that others were causing Him. The part of that verse that says, “for they know not what they are doing,” could be accurately translated “they are doing the best they can with what they have to work with.” (Their personal capacity to deal with life) All of us are affected by the Fall, and even those of us who are in Christ will not see the manifestation of our perfection in Christ until we see Him face-to-face. When people hurt you, betray you, reject or in any way abandon you, it is imperative that we see through the eyes of Jesus, just as Stephen did when he was stoned to death. God holds people accountable for their actions, and sometimes that accountability is exacted by actions that we have to take. Still, there’s never permission for us to hold onto offense or unforgiveness because if we do that, the enemy has won twice. His first victory was their behavior towards us, and a second victory is our sinful response of bitterness towards them. Jesus died on the cross for all humanity so that through our union with Him, we would have more to work with as far as doing life is concerned. But all of us in Christ are still in process, and of course, those who don’t know Christ have really nothing to work with. It has helped me so much over the years to simply sink into the compassionate heart of Christ and to see the people who have offended me in some way as still being broken at some level, doing the best they can with what they’ve learned to work with. It causes me to love them even more and to pray that they will discover more in Christ so that they have more to work with in the future so that they will not continue to behave as they behaved their personal behavior toward me was only a reflection of their own bondage and misery they haven’t been healed of yet, and in Christ I want to see them experience everything personally that Jesus accomplished for them. In terms of my personal life story, I refuse to believe the lie that somehow because they walk out of my life, or in some way hurt me deeply, they have flawed my life story on a permanent level, and it can never be as good as it could have been if they had not done what they did. I have to remind myself that I don’t have a life story because I have been crucified with Christ, and therefore my life and my plans are now in union with Him, and nothing, nor anybody can ruin His story being told in and through me. As a matter of fact, Jesus has already made provision for anything anyone might do to me that is hurtful, by just folding it in as part of the adventure and drama of the story that He’s telling through my life. As a matter of fact, he uses the junk that others might throw at me to become rocket fuel to propel me at a faster pace into the destiny of His particular version for me of Christ-likeness on display.
By the way, if the hurt you’ve experienced is because somebody walked out of your life, then know this; your story in Christ is not over! Their part in your story, for now, is over, but your story of abundant life in Christ continues.