Pastor Frans Ledwaba
“Jesus has taken away our sins, and now I can truly talk about forgiveness. The bible says we must forgive each other from the heart, and I cannot do that while there’s still pain in my heart; while there’s still some offence in my heart.” said Maria Dos Santos. This was during a 3 day workshop (for Healing, forgiveness and restoration) at Members in Church under Pastor Frans Ledwaba in Mamelodi East. More than 80 church members attended this workshop.
Members In Christ & Mercy Ministry Leadership
“What Forgiveness is NOT!”
“I had some misconceptions about forgiveness. And as a young believer I thought I knew what forgiveness is. And when I came to church one of the first things I learned is forgiveness because God has forgiven me; but I still had some misconceptions about that.” said the Maria.
“Forgiveness is not saying that it doesn’t matter or condoning sin. When God ask me to forgive someone, the Lord is not saying that what that person did to me is nothing. The Lord is not saying that He agrees with what that person did; because If we read on Exodus 24 startting on verse 5;” She continued.
“That is a heavy verse; it is a good verse but a heavy verse. So when I got to the point when I knew to forgive this is a verse that helped me, because I felft like when people said to me forgive but you don’t know what they did to me; you dont know how their actions affected my life; and now you are telling me to just forgive. It felt to me like God was agreeing with what they did to me was right. Until the Lord showed me, No! I will forgive inequity, but by forgiving, I don’t remove that inequity. Everyone will be given an account, including me. I will also be given an account on how I acted towards other people.” She explained.
“We often see ourselves in a victim scene. We just focus on what was done to us. The scary party is that I too have hurt others. Sometimes I do it intentionally, and sometimes I do it unintentionally. But as i walk this journey of life, there have been people I hurt. And the same thing applies to me, which apply to those that hurt me. Why? Because God is just; He is fair; the same way He loves me unconditionally, the same way He loves the pesron who hurt me unconditionally. I don’t like that part. I did struggle with that at the beginning. You just don’t know Lord; just punish him a little bit. Let him feel what he did to me. I wanna see how you punish him. But that is not the attitude of Christ; Not at all. To God all sins matters; God will never say something that was wrong is now right. If it was wrong ten years ago, it will be wrong today; and it will be wrong in many years time. If it was wrong when Ronnie did it, it will be wrong when I do it again. It will never be right.” she emphasized.
Miss Maria Dos Santos
“Another misconception we may have; Forgiveness is not denying our feelings of anger or sadness or whatever.” said Maria.
“Sometimes we think that somebody does something to me and it hurts me, so instead of me acknowledging that what they did cause me pain; I putup my mask; Ah its fine; no problem; no its nothing; does that mean I have forgiven? No! So by denying my feelings of anger or sadness by wearing my mask it doesn’t mean I have forgiven.” she said.
“I have a brother in law and I always think of him when I think of this: If you do something to him, he will never say. He will sit there with a smile. You will sense that there is a problem but he will not say, but the look tells you a different story. Sometimes we think that as Christians we have to keep this mask on. Though somebody did something that make me angry, I literally lie and say no, I’m not angry, but I’m angry. And when I live this room and I’m out there with my friends I will say how this person made me angry. But here I say, No problem. That a lie.” She said.
“So to forgive we need to face the pain and bring it to the cross. The bible says, it is difficult to forgive from the heart if we are hiding pain. Forgiveness is not forgetting or being unable to recall it. That is a good one. Because we say we say we must forgive and forget. That is not true because we don’t forget. Something is wrong with that, because if I have to forget, that means I have no testimony. That means I can not stand and share that this happened to me; this how the Lord help me. If you think I need to forget, no Testimony.” She said.
“If this represents (lifting up a string) that Ronnie has hurt me; this (the string) represents the sin. Each time I look at Ronie I see what he has done to me. I see actions that hurt me. What we learned is that we need to take this to the cross. We learned that Jesus took responsibility for this sin against me. And this sin belongs to Jesus. When I take this sin to the cross I remove it from Ronnie and I put it on to Jesus. Now when I look at Ronnie I don’t see what he has done to me; because I put it where it belongs. I now have forgiven Ronnie. I will remember but I will know that I put it on Jesus." She said.
"I will remember it differently. My heart and my mind will change. So, when I have truly forgiven someone I will remember, but I will remember differently. And the sin of it is out that I will know it is truly forgiven. Because if I still look at him and I still become angry of something; if I look at him and some emotions comes out: if I have truly forgiven and my heart is empty, I can still look at Ronnie knowing what he has done and still love him. That is a devine act. That is something God has enable us for. It is not something that comes out of our own. It is not something I can pray away. It is something God has to do.”She said.
“I remember many years ago. I had some issues with my mother and I came to a point when I felt I really hate mother. I was so afraid to say but I was thinking, and I struggled with it. And I was a Christian already. Any time my mother would just say something all of this anger will come out. It was just a simple little thing. It wasn’t a big thing; and before that I prayed; I said Lord I forgive my mother. I released her. But she just had to say one word, and I will erupt. And then God brought me to a point where it felt this emotion. I felt like I hate my mother. That made me felt guilty because that makes me a bad child; and a worse Christian. How could I have this feeling? And it was God that brought me to a point where I had to take off the mask. See, I was telling everybody, everything is fine, and I was praying for everybody. There was something in my heart.” She paused.
“I remember one day at work, we use to have a prayer meeting everyday. I went to prayer meeting and no one was there except one Indian girl. And this burden was so heavy, and I said to her; you know what; I grew up as a staunch Catholic Christian. You don’t question God; you don’t even have a question in your mind when it comes to God; and you definately don’t question your parents; or feel that worry about your parents. All this was going inside me.” Maria pointed out.
“I said to her, I just don’t know. I feel something just need to come out. She said just say it. I struggled just to say it. You have just said it because you are thinking about it. You can as well say it. I said to her, this is what I feel. As I said I just began to cry, and that was a release and God started to work in my life because I was real and honest.” She said.
“Did I real hate my mother? I don’t think so. It was just pain and anger in me that wasn’t coming out; that felt so strong. God started to work on me and I started to learn the process of truly forgiving. And after that, my mother will do something but will not get the same reaction from me.” She said.
“But what I know is that I changed first, and as I was going on reading the word of God, and listening she also changed. We now have a true good relationship. I really love my mother so much. I look at my mother and there’s no bitterness against her or anger and don’t have to deny this. Things happen, but I’m released. God had to do this. This is part of my testimony and it is an encouragement. It is not in anyway to dishonour my mother.” Continued Maria.
“Forgiveness is not concealing sin. When God ask us to forgive he doesn’t want us to cover up what was done. Sometimes we think by covering it up we have forgiven. If for example, I was married. And I am a leader in the church, myself and my husband. But my husband beats me at home and he beat the children. But when I come to church everything is fine; and maybe he is beating our children to a point that he molested our daughter. It happened once; and we are not going to talk about it again. She doesn’t talk about it; we don’t talk about it. We go on as if life is fine. Does that mean I have forgiven you? Does that mean she has forgiven him? No! Because if I truly have to be able to forgive I must first face and express my pain. I need to talk about it. I need to say what you have done to me hurt me; that is how your actions affected my life. Then I can take it to the cross. Then that is forgiveness.” She said.
“I remember sometimes when we did this workshop; we had a pastor who attended. He said he has dealt with the issue of apartheid. He has released the perpetrators; he has forgiven them and he even wrote a book about it. Then we came to this session of ethnics. And he refused to do it. He literally caused a scene in the workshop. He said he will not talk about it; it is in the past; it is finished. And that told us that he hasn’t. There’s still a lot of pain. He left and we could not stop him.” She said.
“Forgiveness doesn’t mean refusing to cooperate with the Nation’s judiciary system”
“So if I have murdered someone; and I’m caught and locked up; maybe a church like MICC comes and minister for us in prison, and I give my life to the Lord; God forgives me for what I have done. Maybe the church brings a family of the person I murdered, and brings us together; and I have an opportunity to tell them I am very sorry; and I understand my actions caused pain. And they forgive me, and now I have received their forgiveness for the people I have hurt. Does it mean they must release me from prison? No! I still have to bear the consequences of my actions. Even though from my spiritual perspective I am a free woman in prison, I still have to bear the consequences of my actions.” She said.
”So by being forgiven doesn’t mean I need to be released from prison; I don’t have to bear the consequences.” She added.
“Forgiveness doesn’t mean avoiding confrontation if that is necessary”
“All it means is that; if my brother hurts me, it doesn’t mean I must avoid talking to him. We have a good example in Matthew 18. When somebody hurts you, it affects the relationship. There’s a break in a relationship. Then I go and speak with my brother and tell him you did this and this is what it did to me so that we can restore that relationship. But, if he doesn’t listen the bible says take one or two people with you as witnesses; and if he still doesn’t listen, bring the church, the leadership I think. If he doesn’t listen that means he just refuses. Then you see him as one of the believers. Do we throw him out? I don’t think so. Maybe we need to remove them? I don’t know. There’s a biblical way to handle issues. But if my brother hurts me and I go and tell this one person, and that person and the whole church knows except him, that is gossip. Even if he had sinned agaist me." Said Maria.
