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Why is forgiveness so important?

A friend recently said this to me. “Walking in unforgiveness is like drinking poison yourself, and hoping it will hurt somebody else.” I cannot think of a more apt or accurate description of the destructive power of unforgiveness in our lives.

Unforgiveness is a totally debilitating disease which leads to resentment, bitterness, disillusionment, and despair. It is like a weed that takes root in your life, the sooner you deal with it the easier it is to pull it out, the longer you leave it the deeper the roots go and the harder it becomes to remove. Unforgiveness if not dealt with will affect your health and rob you of your joy in life. It will make you an unpleasant person to be with and will color your view of every situation negatively.

No matter how justified you think you are in feeling the way you do and how much it hurts to think about the situation you have come through, if you do not learn how to walk in forgiveness it will eat at you until it destroys your life.

A severe wound or hurt will occupy most of your waking moments, you wake up in the morning and it’s on your mind immediately, you dream about it at night and wake up with your body tensed, it can dominate your thoughts during the day particularly if your job does not place much of a demand on your mind, and the process of just dealing with every day becomes utterly exhausting.

God cares about our hurt

A while ago one of my daughters had a very clear vision during a worship service. She saw the Lord absolutely wracked with tears, weeping - almost it seemed – inconsolably. At the time she didn’t really understand what it was she had seen, but a short time after she was attending another service she got a revelation of what the writer meant in Hebrews 4:14-15 when he said;

Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Suddenly she knew that God was not some aloof distant being who just sat there orchestrating everything without any care, instead she saw a God who was passionately involved in our hurt, who understood exactly what we were going through, and wept with us through our pain even though he knew the outcome would be glorious! Wow, what a different picture from the one religion has so often presented, of a God who is looking for us to fail so that He can rub our faces in it and make us feel bad about ourselves, who is remote and removed from our reality.

No! No! No! We serve a God who loves us beyond measure, who loved us so much He was willing to give the most precious thing He could, His only Son Jesus, to die for us so that we could be reconciled to Him while still here on earth, and then in eternity to come. He set the example in forgiving us through Jesus; He showed us how to walk in the ultimate demonstration of forgiveness, and then personified it in Jesus who again showed us the perfect example of the power of forgiveness at work.

Bitterness and resentment that flows from unforgiveness are some of the most powerful weapons reigned against us by the enemy; they rob us of a right relationship with God and remove us from His covering, and if we allow them to, they will rob us of our reason for living.

What if my hurts came through my church?

Often hurts that come from our enemies are easier to bear as they are not unexpected, but hurts and offences that come through someone we trusted, - be it our Pastor, a family member, or another member of our church, - can be the most difficult to deal with, but notice what Jesus said to Peter in the passage  in Matthew;

Then Peter came to Him and said, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven."

We can see here that Peter was talking about being sinned against not by his enemies but by a brother which is always a much greater wound to sustain. Jesus answer gave him no room for maneuver, there was no question about the circumstances of the offence as it would have made no difference. Instead Jesus simply says, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven”, or in other words an infinite number of times.

Again Jesus gives us no escape route here, there is no leeway at all in His answer that could possibly be interpreted in any other way than to accept we are absolutely required by God to exercise forgiveness towards anyone who offends or hurts us.

What is our response when somebody hurts us? Is it what we read in Proverbs 17:9? - He who covers a transgression seeks love, But he who repeats a matter separates friends.

Do we keep it to ourselves and ask God to deal with the situation, or do we run to the nearest person we can find and begin to spread the offence around? There is nothing worse than becoming offended at someone else’s offence! Not only is that person debilitated by unforgiveness but now it is spreading and others are taking the same thing on board and spreading the disease.

The Power of Love

Some years ago I was working in the printing industry as a salesman when we had a new manager appointed. For some weeks everything seemed to be fine but then without any real warning he called me into his office one day and stated quite eloquently how unhappy he was with my performance. He finished our meeting by saying, “if I have my way you will be out of here by this time tomorrow.”

I left that meeting and got into my car with a wild mix of emotions running through my mind. On the one hand I was scared and fearful for my future, but on the other hand I was incensed by what I felt was a gross injustice, as - although I wasn’t exactly enjoying a great run – neither did I feel I was performing that badly.

As I began to pray and ask God for help (also venting my anger at the situation), I felt the Holy Spirit challenging me to walk in love towards this man. At first I found it extremely difficult but persevered despite my emotions, and began declaring blessings over him and asking God to bless him in his position and promote him, in fact I prayed all the things I wanted for myself over his life – putting into effect the law of sowing and reaping, although I didn’t recognize this at the time. All the while I was battling with my emotions but making right choices in my spirit.

The following day he called me into a meeting which I attended with some fear and trepidation. Although he said they had decided not to dismiss me from my position, he would instead be watching me very carefully and wanted to accompany me on some of my sales visits to see what I was doing.

The following week I arranged our first day out together with a full day of appointments, and we had a reasonably promising start which begun to soften the atmosphere between us. I began to realize the enormous pressure he was under in this new position, and also discovered that things were not what they should have been in his home life and marriage.

As we continued through our day our last appointment was with a publisher in London. The visit was the first to a new prospect, that turned out to be a huge client worth many hundreds of thousands of pounds to our company. He was elated, I went from turkey to eagle in a short time, and needless to say, I kept my job!

But it didn’t end there, not only did I keep my job but within a few weeks he was fired by the company and I was given his position instead. By this time I had continued to pray for him and had began building a relationship with him and was truly sorry to see him go.

Since that time I have put into practice the principle of walking in love on a number of occasions and have invariably seen similar amazing results. There is a force released when we walk in love that is one of the most powerful forces on earth. It will overcome any obstacle and produce a harvest in your life that will absolutely amaze you.

Dealing with Pride

You might think this has nothing to do with walking in forgiveness, but one of the things I have realized over these past few years is that my pride has been one of the biggest stumbling blocks to my walking in forgiveness. When I am honest with myself I have to confess that much of my struggle with forgiveness comes because of my hurt over the loss of my reputation in certain circles. This caused me much anguish and the bottom line is that it was because of my pride.

I know that God knows the truth, and I know that I know the truth, but somehow the sense of injustice is often fed by my wounded pride. Why is it so hard? Because my reputation has always mattered to me and I have had to battle with a low self esteem for many years. I know it needn’t be so, but I still have to battle that religious spirit that to tells me it is all about appearances, and that what people think of me matters more than what God says about me.

Well I have made a decision that it is all about Jesus and not about me, and that what matters is Him in my life and my reputation is safe in His hands. If I continue walking in offence it is a question of the Lordship of Christ over my life. Do I trust Him and am I surrendered to Him?

I choose not to allow offence to rob me of my peace and blessing, I choose not to be diverted from God’s plan and purpose for my life by bitterness or offence, I choose not to miss out on the amazing plans God has for my life and instead, I choose to place God above my reputation. I choose to serve Him with all my heart and every ounce of my being. I know that the plans He has for me will more than make up for anything I have lost and that if I am obedient to Him and involve Him in every aspect of my life, I will have a long, prosperous, and effective life that will be full of joy and peace, be fruitful and productive and allow me to achieve my full potential in Him and no one can ever take that away from me!

I have discovered that serving God is the most awesome adventure I could have imagined. It has exceeded my wildest dreams, it has taken me to places I never thought possible, it has placed me under anointed and gifted men and women of God, and for that I will be eternally grateful.

Even in the midst of our battles God has ‘prepared a table for us in the presence of our enemies’ and we are the most blessed people beyond anything we deserve. I cannot begin to tell you the amazing things God has done for us down to the smallest details He has taken care of, but I know that we are walking out His plan and purpose, that we are in for still more adventures, and that we have only just begun our journey into our destiny. I simply don’t have time to fool around with unforgiveness any more and neither do you, so I encourage you to lay aside any offences you may be carrying and choose the path of forgiveness in order that you too may step into the blessings God has for you.

If you do not know Jesus as your personal friend and Savior I want you to know that whatever you have done in your life and no matter how angry or disappointed you feel, He loves you passionately and that He has the most wonderful life ready for you to step into. A life full of purpose and fulfillment, a life full of adventure, and a life full of joy, peace, blessing and prosperity, as you discover the amazing depths of His love and the incredible extent of His plans for you.

If you are ready to take that step now then pray out this prayer;

"Father, I thank You that Jesus died for my sins, that He has taken all my past failures and mistakes and paid the price for them instead of me, I ask You to forgive me and I want to follow You. Thank You that Jesus was resurrected from the dead, is alive, and hears my prayer. Jesus, I invite You to become the Lord of my life, to rule and reign in my heart from this day forward. Please send your Holy Spirit to help me know You, In Jesus' name I pray, Amen."

This article is an extract from our book 'How to walk in Forgiveness', for further details and to order a copy please click here.