A reason so many people hate Christians.

One of the people who wronged me the most in all my life, a lifelong Christian, emailed me today and said, "God has forgiven me for what I did to you and has lifted the burden off my shoulders."

Ok, so yes, Jesus taught that God is forgiving. But He also taught that burdens would not be lifted off shoulders. You are supposed to carry your own and help carry the burdens of others too. That's the ideal anyway. Jesus lived knowing His death would be painful and horrible and heartbreaking, and He never once saddled it onto those around Him, nor did He give it up to God. He asked God to let His will be done without ever asking for the pain to be removed from His own body. Not only that, but while He died His horribly painful death, He took on all of the burdens of the people of the world too.

When you tell somebody you have wronged so badly that God has lifted the burden off your shoulders, all it does is place the burden on your victim, on top of the burden they already carry because of your brokenness.

God might be forgiving, but be humble about it. Don't assume you're right with God. Accept the gifts from God with grace and humility, not with certainty and arrogance. Don't use God to absolve yourself of your burdens, especially not those which you created through your own horribleness.

How are you supposed to learn and grow from anything if you constantly absolve yourself from it? How are you supposed to repent when you are free from your wrongdoings?

Please don't tell the victim of your terribleness that your burden has lifted. That makes God's forgiveness a terrible thing, and that is terrible ministry.

If you're the betrayer and you feel your burden has been lifted while the person you inflicted yourself onto still suffers regularly as a result of your wrongness, you are obviously not helping carry their burdens. And if you are the betrayer and you feel forgiveness from God for what you've done, don't accept it right away. Instead, pray that that forgiveness be redirected to the person you've wronged. Pray that the love, support and forgiveness from God fall on the person whom you have left too broken to forgive.

And above all else, don't tell them you've been forgiven when they haven't even begun the process yet.

God does forgive, but quickly accepting the forgiveness of the One who always will love you and will always forgive you is a cop out. All is not right with the world if you accept the forgiveness and rest on it.

Luke Ch 6:37-
Forgive, and you will be forgiven.

It's not the other way around. And imagine the burden on the person you've wronged. They have to forgive first to be forgiven too. And they feel it far more than you also. They feel the weight of the resentment and of the grudge every day. They are constantly aware of their shortcomings when it comes to forgiveness. Constantly. And it gets to a point where they have to forgive themselves first, before even beginning to forgive the terrible acts committed to them. The betrayed has to go through so many levels of forgiveness before even considering the forgiveness of God and to feel worthy of it, and even if one achieves all the levels of forgiveness, they will forever carry a burden in consequence of the whole series of events and betrayals.

So please, before you consider reminding somebody you've betrayed that God has forgiven you, make sure they feel completely forgiven first. Otherwise, you're just using religion, Christianity in particular, to wash the blood off your hands.

And that's not Jesusy. Not even a little bit.

It's actually super disgraceful, if you think about it.

It's Pontius Pilatey. (Matthew 27:24)

But really, that's one of the strongest arguments against Christians being good people- if you're constantly forgiven, what makes you actively seek out the forgiveness of those you wrong? People with no religion have to live with their sins. They have no automatic forgiveness and therefore won't feel it, in theory, unless they actively seek it out from the person or people whom they have wronged so terribly. Having no God while having a strong conscience makes you a good person because you're stuck righting all of your wrongs here and now, in this world, alone.

Even in the absence of Jesus, that approach is far more Christian in my opinion.

To me, real Christians will strive for anything empathetic and selfless, not jump on the first Biblical explanation that absolves them and clears their conscience. Real Christians would be a little less selfish and arrogant, and a lot more Jesusy.

What is the point of being a follower of Christ if you're not following Jesus? Sounds redundant, but really, more Christians should take it to heart.

Please.