Love Means You *Always" Have To Say You're Sorry

Today’s piece is a joint post with the blog, Christianity 201

Forgiveness.

I’ve had a number of people lately ask me for a good resource book on the subject of forgiveness. It’s a popular theme in Christian books:

• Total Forgiveness by R. T. Kendall
• Five Languages of Apology by Gary Chapman
• The Gift of Forgiveness by Charles Stanley
• Choosing Forgiveness by Nancy Leigh DeMoss
• Choosing Forgiveness by John and Paul Sandford
• The Revolutionary Guide to Forgiveness by Eric Wright
• The Power of Forgiveness by Joyce Meyer
• The Freedom and Power of Forgiveness by John McArthur
• Forgiveness: Breaking the Power of The Past by Kay Arthur et al
• How to Forgive When You Don’t Feel Like It by June Hunt

The title of this post alludes to the phrase

Love means you never have to say you’re sorry

which is taken from the 1970s movie Love Story and a hit song of that era. You can read more about that here. The song went:

Love means you never have to say you`re sorry
Love means without a word you understand
Hold me and let the pressures disappear
Kiss me I only need to know you`re here

Love means you never have to say you`re sorry
Touch me the love I felt is everywhere
I know I`ll never be alone again
Love means we`ll never really say goodbye

Love means you never have to say you`re sorry
Touch me the love I felt is everywhere
I know I`ll never be alone again
Love means we`ll never really say goodbye

Ahh… Isn’t that just sooooooooo romantic? (Bonus points if you can name the artist. Answer in the comments section.)

But life isn’t like that. Sometimes you want to hear that apology. You want to hear the words. You want to sense that the other person has a sense of regret, of contrition.

And sometimes all of us have a way of dancing around actually having to say those words, “I’m sorry. I’m so very, very sorry.”

Christ followers are forgiven people. Freely we have received; now freely we need to give.

Here’s Matthew 6:12 –

Keep us forgiven with you and forgiving others. (Message)

and forgive us our sins,

as we have forgiven those who sin against us. (NLT)

Pardon our offenses as we also ourselves pardon such that offend us. (rough translation from the French Louis Segond version)

Forgiveness: Easy to discuss. Hard to do.

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