What if Forgiveness Is the Key to Your Own Freedom?

Forgiveness That Frees the Brokenhearted

Phillip and Laurie seemed like the perfect couple. Winsome. Steady. Parents of three beautiful children. Their home became a gathering point for actors, producers, and screenwriters in Hollywood. Then tragedy struck. Laurie was killed in a drive-by shooting. The story made national headlines. Days later, Phillip stood before microphones and stunned reporters:

“As a Christian, my faith teaches me to forgive my enemies. I forgive my wife’s killers.”

The declaration went viral. Some called it noble; others called it naïve. Months later, the prison chaplain called Phillip.

“Sir, the man who killed your wife has become a Christian. He wants to ask for your forgiveness.”

Phillip froze. Suddenly, forgiveness wasn’t an idea—it was a face and a voice.

“My wife was a fantastic mother,” Phillip said later. “Her sudden death left an unfilled gap. I struggled to raise our children alone. And now this killer wanted me to release him?”

In that moment, Phillip realized: forgiveness isn’t about what someone deserves. It’s about what Christ has already done.

 “I knew I didn’t deserve mercy for everything I had done myself,” he said. “What right did I have to withhold forgiveness?”

Phillip forgave his wife’s murderer.

Christ's Love Is Strong Enough to Face the Wound

My own story runs along a similar road. As a boy, I watched my father devastate our family through an affair with my mother’s best friend, our neighbor. Daddy would return from work, wave to us kids, then walk straight into her house. He’d come home late, often drunk. One wrong word from Mommy, and she’d be slapped or punched.

The affair carried on in plain sight until, one day, the woman announced she had become a Christian. She ended the relationship and joined our church. At the close of every service, we had a tradition. We would turn to one another and sing a familiar song:

“I love you with the love of the Lord,
 I love you with the love of the Lord,
 Because I see in you the glory of the Lord,
 Yes, I love you with the love of the Lord.”

For weeks, I watched my mother nervously. I didn’t want her to have to face this woman. I feared it would hurt too much. But then one Sunday, I looked up and saw it happen. My mother was holding the hands of this woman, tears streaming down her face, singing those very words:

“I love you with the love of the Lord,
 Yes, I love you with the love of the Lord,
 Because I see in you the glory of the Lord.”

It was forgiveness made visible—not doctrine on a page, but grace embodied. It marked me forever.

5 Things Forgiveness Is Not

Before we define forgiveness, we need to clear the ground:

1. Forgiveness is not a feeling.
We may never feel like forgiving. Jesus didn’t say, “When you feel ready.” He said, “If you forgive others… your Father will also forgive you” (Matt. 6:14).

2. Forgiveness is not tolerance.
It doesn’t minimize sin. Joseph told his brothers plainly, “You meant evil against me” (Gen. 50:20).

3. Forgiveness is not enabling.
It doesn’t excuse destructive patterns. Jesus forgave the woman caught in adultery, but also said, “Go, and sin no more” (John 8:11).

4. Forgiveness is not restitution.
Reconciliation may never be possible. Forgiveness is given freely; reconciliation requires repentance and rebuilding trust.

5. Forgiveness is not forgetting.
God doesn’t erase memory. He chooses not to weaponize it: “Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more” (Heb. 10:17).

Why Forgiveness Hurts

During a teaching in Malaysia, a woman came forward after I preached on forgiveness. 

“Dr. Dennis, please pray for me,” she said. “I’ve been carrying this for fifty years. I need to forgive my best friend.”
“What did she do?” I asked.
“She slept with my boyfriend.”

I looked at this gracious elderly woman and thought, Who could be so cruel to hurt someone like her?

“How long ago?” I asked.
“Fifty years,” she said.
“Is he alive? Is she alive?”
“No. They’re both dead.”

I paused, then said softly: “Ma’am, isn’t it time you gave yourself the gift? Isn’t it time you released them—and in doing so, released yourself?”

That’s the paradox. We imagine forgiveness is about setting someone else free. But in truth, forgiveness is the greatest gift we can ever give ourselves. Unforgiveness is drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.

Why Forgiveness Is Central to the Gospel

The gospel is not self-improvement—it is the announcement that God has forgiven us through Christ.

-Jesus, hanging on the cross, prayed: “Father, forgive them” (Luke 23:34).
-Paul urged: “Be kind… forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you” (Eph. 4:32).
-Colossians sharpens it: “Forgive as the Lord forgave you” (Col. 3:13).

To refuse forgiveness is to withhold what we ourselves desperately need. That’s why Jesus taught us to pray, “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors” (Matt. 6:12). Our experience of God’s forgiveness is inseparably tied to our extension of it to others.

Forgiveness and Justice
Some protest: “But what about justice? Doesn’t forgiveness let people off the hook?” No. Forgiveness is not the opposite of justice. Forgiveness entrusts justice to God. Paul writes, “Never avenge yourselves… for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay,’ says the Lord” (Rom. 12:19). In forgiving, we don’t excuse evil—we release our claim to be judge. The cross shows that sin is so serious that it required the blood of God’s Son, yet grace is so radical that even murderers can be redeemed.

Forgiveness Across Cultures
Forgiveness takes on sharp edges when it collides with real pain:
-“I was bullied by her kids.”
-“I was raped by my uncle.”
-“I was wrongly fired from my job.”

Every one of us has stories of hurt. We all carry wounds. But every follower of Jesus has the same call: forgive as you have been forgiven. When politics, discrimination, tribalism, and resentment dominate public life, the Church must embody a different way. Forgiveness is not weakness. It is gospel power made visible.

Forgiveness as Freedom
Forgiveness is not simply a duty; it is deliverance. Jesus came to “proclaim liberty to the captives” (Luke 4:18). Unforgiveness keeps us chained to our offenders. Forgiveness breaks the chain. Corrie ten Boom, who survived Nazi camps, said: “Forgiveness is the key that unlocks the door of resentment and the handcuffs of hatred.”

Forgiveness doesn’t erase pain—it transforms it. Wounds become scars: marks of survival, not prisons of bitterness.

Freedom Is a Gift We Give Ourselves
Whether it is a Hollywood husband facing his wife’s killer, a betrayed mother holding hands with her betrayer, or a weary woman in Malaysia clutching fifty years of bitterness, the truth remains the same. Forgiveness is not a feeling. It is not tolerance, enabling, or forgetting. Forgiveness is the courageous choice to release the debt because Christ has released ours. Forgiveness is not just a gift we extend to others. It is a gift we give ourselves. It is freedom.

“So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” — John 8:36

Photo Credit: ©Unsplash/Bailey Burton

Dr. Dennis Sempebwa was born and raised in Uganda. He has served in 89 countries as an award-winning recording artist, leadership coach, educator, and sought-after speaker. Holding numerous doctoral degrees and authorship of 18 books, Dennis is recognized as one of Africa’s top thought leaders and public intellectuals. He and his family reside in Texas, USA. Learn more at sempebwa.com.