Forgiving Yourself Forgiving Others Forgiving God
The Beginning Of Forgiveness The Steps To Living Forgiven
Forgiveness is the foundation for ALL spiritual, emotional, and physical healing. Unpleasant or traumatic life experiences, conflicts with loved ones, feelings of guilt, fear and resentment, self-esteem issues, poor thoughts and attitudes can radically affect one's health without even being aware of it because it may be held captive in the subconscious. Even a person's lifestyle and diet can have negitive effects as well. Most importantly, a lack of knowledge and understanding of who God is, and what every individual on this planet means to Him, can overshadow and affect virtually every single detail of one's life.
If conflicts and problems are not addressed at the roots in both the conscious and subconscious, good health if ever achieved, will only be at best an illusion and a short-lived experience. Dealing with symptoms is of little help. Healing will come after uncovering the causes!
Every human being has endured personal traumas that have challenged thier ability to forgive. The deep hurts that have occurred during this life's journey that were never deserved, tend to remain hidden within, often unhealed, and can leave a person emotionally ill, feeling empty and incomplete. The abusive father, the alcoholic mother who neglected her children, or the spouse who walked out on the relationship have left many reeling with emotions or even physical scars that have left hideous wounds deep in the subconscious.
Sadly, it is usually those closest - whether a family member or friend - who have often been the ones to say or do something that has caused great hurt and pain. You may have encountered prejudice or discrimination because of your skin color, your ethic background, or just because of your personal beliefs.
Maybe there was a teacher who embarrassed you as a child before your classmates, or others who made fun because you were too fat, too skinny, too tall, or too short. Worse still, just when you believed that by belonging to a church family you were shielded from the pains of the world, you became a victim of vicious gossip and the betrayal of a friend.
We have all been disappointed, deceived, rejected, ridiculed, and abused. It could have happened just moments ago or many years past. If you desire to experience life to its fullest, then those wounds need to be healed and you must learn to forgive those who are guilty of hurting you. Before you can begin Living Forgiven you must first learn how to love and forgive just as your heavenly Father loves and forgives you. Forgiveness must flow from every member of the human family. And when you reach out with forgiveness from your heart, you are reaching out with the heart of God.
Forgiving yourself can only start when you learn to see yourself as God sees you. When you ask Jesus Christ to be the Lord of your life you are immedately made acceptable to God by the blood He shed to wash away your failures and faults. Your acceptance by God covers your entire life - past, present, and future.
Once you become a fully devoted follower of His, your life, including your childhood, is washed clean by the cleansing power of the blood of Jesus. He places all those things that have happened to you in the past under the same healing power of forgiveness that you experience when you become a born-again believer. Jesus died so that you could be forgiven for all that has happened, or will ever happen, to you. He will take care of your yesterdays, today, and your tomorrows.
You can diligently read the Bible, teach Sunday school, hold Bible studies, drive the church bus, sing in the choir, or go out on the street to evangelize, but you cannot make yourself acceptable to God by what you do, no matter how hard you try. You are made acceptable and complete by what Jesus has already done.
Since Jesus makes you acceptable when you receive Him as your personal Lord and Savior, and He forgave all your sins, you must now allow forgiveness to flow through your past so that you can accept yourself and others - blemishes and all - because of His shed blood, both today and forever more. That innocent child living in you deserves the same love and forgiveness you have been given as an adult through Jesus.
If you do not accept yourself - or others - in Christ, and forgive as you have been forgiven, then you put yourself in a place higher than God. When you think that by stopping your bad behavior or habit - or whatever it may be - that you can be a "good" Christian, you are actually saying you are bigger than God.
Your relationship with Jesus as a born-again Christian can be summed up in the words, "you are complete in Him." Positionally, you can never be more acceptable to God than you were at the moment you asked Jesus to be the Lord of your life and repented of your sin, no matter what has happened in the past, what is happening in the present, and what will happen in the future. You have already been made complete in Him who saved you! There are no missing pieces. Yo There are no more levels to ascend before you find true spirituality.
It is only through the sacrificial payment Jesus made on your behalf by His death upon the Cross that you can find healing and forgiveness within.
It is impossible to forgive as you have been forgiven unless you have God living in you. Jesus taught that the direct evidence of being His follower is to forgive beyond the limits of human comprehension. It is supernatural - something that you cannot do apart from Him!
If you are His follower, then you can forgive because you are a partaker of His grace. If you don't forgive, then you prove to the world that you are not one who has been transformed into a true believer. When you don't forgive, you "bind" the Holy Spirit from working in your heart, in the lives of your family, and for the unity of all believers. Nothing hinders the work of God more in our churches than unforgiveness. By not forgiving you are letting "loose" your old fleshly nature and giving place to the enemy to wreak havoc in your midst.
Holy Spirit longs to bring healing and blessing into your life. When you don't forgive another, you bind and imprison that person. However, by not forgiving, you also do the very same thing to yourself. Forgiveness loosens and breaks the chains that shackle you to the sins of your past and from the hurts and pains caused by those who have sinned against you.
Once you commit and agree to forgive, you "loose" Holy Spirit to bring His presence and His glory into the church, into your home, and into the world. By doing this you "bind" the works of the flesh and the enemy so that you might receive and offer the blessings of healing and deliverance.
Do you want freedom from your binding past? Do you want the power of the resurrection loosed in your life so that strife and bitterness are bound? Do you want the blessings of God loosed in your marriage, in your family, and in your church? Then forgiveness must rule your heart.
There can be no real love and unity in any area of your life until there is total forgiveness offered to every one for anything and everything they may have ever done to you or to others."
The very idea of forgiving God may seem ridiculous and even be offensive. God personally doesn't need forgiveness. Yet, there are those who harbor secret anger, resentment and even hatred towards God for things that have happened in their life or the life of a loved one. In order to find complete healing they need to forgive God.
I'm sure everyone has experienced suffering in their life to one extent or another. The suffering might be through quiet tears shed in the silence of the night as one reflects on the wounds inflicted by another. Perhaps it is from the brutal treatment of an abusive spouse, the tragic loss of a loved one at the hands of a criminal, a terrible accident, or the ravage of a debilitating disease.
And yet, people can also cause their own suffering when they don't forgive. Unforgiveness hurts us more than the person who harmed us. Sadly, when people do suffer, their response is often, "It's not fair, I don't deserve this! Why me?" 
Everyone tends to quickly blame God for tragedy and calamity in their lives. A terrible hurricane destroys complete cities - a loved one is killed by a drunk driver - a boat sinks, killing everyone aboard, and angry people cry out at God and ask, "Why did you do this to me?" Or, too afraid to be angry for fear of appearing faithless, they indirectly accuse Him of causing their suffering by saying, "It was God's will", or "God allowed it."
People also indirectly blame God for their suffering when they say, "He caused it so that I could learn a great lesson." Even though we "know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." (Romans 8:28)
A person may have had a loved one die, or had tragedy befall them while they were living a rebellious life, and have said, "God is punishing me."
The heavenly Father gives to his children "every good and perfect gift." (James 1:17) Many people see the Lord depicted in the Old Testament as always angry, quick to punish and destroy. But, there is a marked difference between how the Lord responded in the Old Testament and how He responds now. God is no longer mad, He is madly in love with you!
If you are a born-again believer then you are now under the law of grace, not the law of works. When you ask Jesus to become the Lord of your life you are immediately adopted into the family of God. Your relationship with the Creator becomes as parent and child.
No loving, caring parent would intentionally or directly cause a terrible accident to happen to his/her child. It is absolutely inconceivable that such a thought could ever cross a healthy loving parent's mind. Why then do so many accuse the heavenly Father of the very things they would never do themselves? His nature and character are directly opposed to it.
Because God is love, He gave man the freedom to choose whether or not to freely love Him in return. The freedom to love is the basis of relationship. If God had not given humans the freedom to choose, we would all be a bunch of mindless robots living preprogrammed lives. However, it is because of that very freedom God gave us that there is suffering in the world.
Jesus Christ, the eternal God who became man, is our example of how to begin Living Forgiven. Without giving up His divine qualities, He became fully immersed within the culture of the people to whom He brought the Great News of Forgiveness.
Jesus once made a very bold and powerful statement recorded in John 14:6: "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me."
Acknowledging that Jesus was only a great teacher or prophet will not bring fullness of life. Jesus said that He is life, and through Him alone anyone can have life that is more abundant.
Either Jesus is who He proclaimed to be, or He is the greatest madman and lying lunatic the world has ever known! If this is true, He wasn't just a "good" man because good men don't lie about who they are. Either His words must be totally rejected or totally accepted. The supreme leadership of Jesus Christ must be accepted in order to live a life flowing in forgiveness. That decision is left up to every human being.
Only Jesus can absolutely transform a life through His forgiveness. Living Forgiven is simply letting Jesus transform a persons life by allowing His forgiveness to flow through them to those with whom they come in contact. However, that can only happen if one completely yields their heart, mind, body and life to Him.
The ability to forgive finds its origin in the love and care of God for His creation. God demonstrated, in a concrete way, His care for humanity by becoming human. It must be this love of God that takes hold of every person and inspires them, in turn, to forgive others.
Jesus is love incarnate. He chose to leave the comfort and glory of heaven and dwell among men. Think about this - God the eternal Son became man to dwell side by side with us! Now we must prove by forgiving others that every human can still dwell eternally side by side with God.
When the Triune God chose a young unmarried teenaged girl to give birth to the Savior of the world, the created bore the Creator. Her maker, her Creator, was to grow within her and be raised by her, nurtured by her, taught by her...loved by her.
Jesus chose to become flesh - human flesh.... just like us... to dwell side by side with each of us and to get caught up with the garbage and the sweat and the blood and the tears and the pain of our world. Why? Because God is love! God so loves you that He was willing to give Himself so that you could have life everlasting - starting today! This is the God we can entrust our hearts to!
Although the incarnation first took place over 2000 years ago, it continues to happen every time you share His love with others...when we speak words of life in His name...when we offer a shoulder to cry on...when we offer a helping hand...a touch to heal ...a handshake of welcome and acceptance...when we give a cup of water in His name. It happens whenever and wherever the name of Jesus is lifted up...every time we choose to forgive....
And it will continue to happen each time someone offers a prayer of simple faith..."Lord Jesus, come into my life and be my Lord and Savior. I need you to forgive my failures and faults. I give you my life as you have given yours. I surrender to you all of the hidden things of my heart."
Living Forgiven is not just about forgiving someone for something that happened in the past but giving us the power to overcome the pains and hurts of today AND tomorrow.
Living Forgiven will help a person to stop thinking about the past and help them begin looking forward with joyous anticipation and excitement that the best is yet to come.
God is yearning to be incarnate in our life...today...and in all our tomorrows. The Kingdom of God is just ahead of us. It is time for us to begin living forgiven! The fullness of God's Glory is still yet to be revealed !!
Just as God chose to become like us to prove His love, we must now choose to become like Him, and learn to walk by His Spirit, breath by breath, overflowing in the power of the Resurrection so that Jesus will become incarnate in every heart we touch.
1. HUMILITY
"Humility is beyond a shadow of a doubt the most significant element of forgiveness. It is directly opposed to pride. Where pride seeks selfish gain, humility seeks selfless gain. True humility is to esteem another more greatly than yourself."
"To humble oneself before God in repentance is mandatory for all believers. Pride and self-exaltation have no place in your life for it is God who "maketh poor, and maketh rich: He bringeth low, and lifteth up." (1 Samuel 2:7 KJV)"
"God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble" (1 Peter 5:5), "therefore humble yourselves, not only one to another, but to the great God, whose judgments are coming upon the world, and must begin at the house of God; his hand is almighty, and can easily pull you down if you be proud, or exalt you if you be humble; and he will certainly do it, either in this life, if he sees it best for you, or at the day of general retribution." (1 Peter 4:17)
"Humbling yourself before others is necessary. It is sad when we see dissension and grievances in the church. One who was slighted by another may make disparaging remarks in return; a misunderstanding may cause anger. These all have in common one significant theme: "They hurt my feelings!" "They made me angry!" "They can't do that to me!"
"All of this is self-centeredness. Me, myself, and I can be our three worst enemies."
"Becoming a Christian required that you had to accept the fact you were a sinner and to repent of your sin. By doing that, you were humbling or submitting yourself to God, acknowledging that you needed a Savior because you were incapable of saving yourself. Children know that they can't care for themselves and that they need another to care and provide for them. Humility is the acknowledgment of that need."
"When you acknowledge by your words and in your behavior that you really do need the help of others, you humble yourself "like little children." When teaching young church leaders how to grow in grace, Peter wrote, "Young men, in the same way be submissive to those who are older. All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble." (1 Peter 5:5)"
"Each day when you get dressed, you make a conscious effort. In the same way, you must take deliberate action on a daily basis to clothe yourself "with humility toward one another." By doing so you will learn obedience and submission."
"If you humble yourself and repent of your foolish pride, you will find the ability to forgive the unforgivable. And when you do, you will find how easy it becomes to get through those terrible times of your life and experience the healing power of forgiveness."
2. OBEDIENCE
"Obedience is often difficult and requires deep commitment. Webster defines the word as "following the commands or guidance of; to conform to or comply with."
"Becoming a Christian requires obedience. It is the key condition of your relationship with God. His Lordship demands obedience, and through obedience you fulfill His commands and statutes. By accepting Him as Savior you are acknowledging that He is the Creator of the universe and your Creator; consequently, you must submit to Him as Lord."
"For you to learn obedience, your life must first have been won over and been persuaded to live in truth. By your obedience to Jesus, you are made partakers of His salvation "and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him." (Hebrews 5:9) The bond of your union with Jesus is obedience through faith. You cannot be identified as a follower of His unless you are obedient."
"If we are going to "demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God,[we must] take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." (2 Corinthians 10:5) Obedience is an act of the will brought out by trust in His control and sovereign rule of our lives."
"Obedience begins with the attitude of your heart. Jesus must be in every thought. As you surrender all aspects of your life and entrust them to Jesus, you will find that it becomes easier to obey His commands-not because you have to but because you want to. You learn obedience by recognizing and performing the role that God has given you, whether it be father, husband, priest of the home, wife, mother, helper, friend, employer, employee, and so on."
"By allowing the Father access to our heart, exposing ourselves completely to His love and, in turn, His will, we allow Him to create a new heart in us. It is through our dying to self that we will be able to forgive as He has forgiven us."
3. TRUST
"If you are having a difficult time obeying God's commands, you are actually having difficulty trusting Him. Therefore, if you are lacking in trust, you will have a much harder time being obedient because you are not truly believing that what He asks of you is in your best interest. Because God has called you to forgive those who have wronged you or deeply hurt you, you know that you can obey this command because He is trustworthy."
"Trust comes through obedience, and obedience brings trust. If I tell you to do something for the first time you may hesitate about doing it because you are afraid that it won't work. But then, when you do it out of obedience and it does work, the next time I ask you to do something you haven't done before, you will be much more likely to do it because I proved myself trustworthy. By being obedient to His commands you will grow in your trust of Him. When God says go to the person you have hurt and ask for forgiveness-or harder still, go to the person who has hurt you and seek reconciliation-you can do it because He has proven His ways are worthy of your trust."
"When you worry about the future or how something might turn out or what might happen to you, you actually make yourself out to be a spiritual orphan. Yet God has promised that "when you go through deep waters and great troubles, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown! When you go through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up; the flames will not consume you." (Isaiah 43:2 NLT) "
"When you first became a born again Christian by putting your trust in the Lord, you accepted Him by faith. In professing Him as leader and forgiver, you became a believer by acknowledging Him as the Lord and Creator of the universe. You were saying "I believe, or trust, that through Your shed blood, forgiveness can, and will, penetrate every area of my life."
"Worry, on the other hand, is practical atheism. By not trusting Him in every circumstance you tell the world that God doesn't really exist!"
Trust is something that grows stronger based upon past experiences. Each of us must prove ourselves trustworthy to one another. We learn to trust others as they prove themselves trustworthy. This is a difficult and continuous task and something that is not easily done on a day-to-day basis. Trust in others will slowly grow until they do something that hurts us.
"Once you have been wronged, you lose some of that trust. Until that person proves him or herself trustworthy again, you will not be able to trust them as before. You will hesitate and experience great apprehension in reconciling your relationship for fear of being hurt again. That is why it's imperative that you obey God's command and ask those you have hurt for forgiveness, as well as forgive those who have hurt you."
"Jesus is the only one in the universe who has, once and for all, completely and totally proven Himself trustworthy by shedding His blood and dying on the cross. He no longer needs to prove He is trustworthy, yet He does so on a moment-by-moment basis in every circumstance and situation in which you find yourself. Forgiveness must be based first and foremost upon your obedience to His commands because He has proven He is worthy of your trust. Trusting in His commands will bring about the healing, restoration, and reconciliation needed in every relationship you have had or will ever have. By trusting your entire body, mind, soul, and spirit completely into His hands, you will experience His peace. Jesus has promised us that nothing can take you out of His hands. (See John 10:28-29)"
"You must learn to trust Him. The way you will learn, and the way you will grow in faith, is by "hearing the message . . . through the word of Christ." (Romans 10:17) Reading and studying the Bible, growing in fellowship with other believers, along with hearing the preaching and teaching of the Word, will increase your faith and trust. It is through trusting Him that you will be able to bring the message of God's forgiveness and reconciliation to the world."
4. CONFESSION
"Becoming a Believer and experiencing the transforming power of God's forgiveness in salvation requires you to confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead. The Bible tells us that "it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved." (Romans 10:10)"
"When you go before the Father to confess your sins, your failures and weaknesses, you are admitting that you are human and in need of forgiveness. True confession is painful, but when you do, "He is faithful and just and will forgive 'your' sins and purify 'you' from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:9)"
"Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and wonderful results." (James 5:16 NLT)"
5. PRAYER
"Prayer is actually be the first step taken on this journey. I left it for last so that it could help bring home the truth that it must become your first step. In order to accomplish the divine command to forgive one another, you must first learn to live your life in prayer and intercession as Jesus commanded:
"Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you that you may be sons of your Father in heaven." (Matthew 5:44)
"Forgiveness will flow freely to a cold world only from a heart that is warmed by God's love. Praying for those who have hurt you proves that you are a child of God and that God's love is in you. When you pray for others, you become a conduit of God's love. His love flows through you to those for whom you are praying."
"Prayer is the dynamic that gives you the ability to do those things you know you cannot do on your own. It is a spiritual umbilical cord to your heavenly Father! It is an act of worship, the communion of your soul with God. It is your spirit working with the Holy Spirit to make changes and fine-tune those changes so that you might "grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." (2 Peter 3:18)"
"Prayer is a personal experience, not a philosophy or a theology. It is to be your transcendent venture of faith and your steadfast response to the hand of God in your life-the only way to adjust to God's plans for you."
"Because prayer is communion with God, there are no "unanswered" prayers. The fact that you, as the created, have communion with the Creator is in itself an answer. When most people speak of unanswered prayer, they tend to think only of those things they asked for and did not receive. Not receiving something is just as much an answer as receiving it. Unfortunately, too many can't accept "no" for an answer."
"You may ask the Lord for things which He, according to His infinite wisdom, knows you should not have. Jesus taught, "How much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him?" (Matthew 7:11)"
"Your heavenly Father not only knows what is best for you to receive, but also what you should not receive. God always answers your prayers, not as you have specifically "directed" Him, but in ways that will most magnify His name and advance His kingdom."
"When you submit and surrender yourself to God, you allow Him to work in your life however He desires. Then you are ready for a revelation of His will. To demand that you know before deciding to submit is to admit you don't trust Him. Lack of trust will always hinder revelation. Revelation comes after you seek His Word for His will, not before."
"Communication is the key to keeping any relationship vibrant and alive. Having an intimate relationship with God is why Jesus taught, "Ask and it will be given you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened." (Matthew 7:7-8)"
"These requirements for answered prayer are in the present tense in the Greek. This means continuous action, so we must keep on asking, seeking, and knocking. The use of the three words "ask, seek, knock" indicates intensity. To "seek" is more determined than just to "ask" and to "knock" is still more determined. We ask for what we need. We seek what we earnestly desire. We knock when our desire becomes of great importance."
"These orders carry with them an unmistakable promise that shows how God sees us. He has ordained some prayers to be answered at once, twice, or after a thousand times asking. It could also be through corporate prayer or as a direct result of our own actions."
"When we pray for the strength and ability to forgive the unforgivable, we must never stop asking, seeking, and knocking until we know we can forgive as we have been forgiven."
'Peter wrote, "The end of all things is near. Therefore be clear minded and self-controlled so that you can pray. Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins." (1 Peter 4:7-8)"
