Forgiveness: Recognize the Need to Forgive!

December 2, 2022

Forgiveness: Recognize the Need to Forgive

Recognizing the need to forgive is the first step to your freedom. A lot of people underestimate the damage the unforgiveness can cause to a person’s overall well-being. The thing is, in order for you to truly forgive someone that has done something to offend you, hurt you, or mistreat you there has to be a decision made to do so. When you can understand and acknowledge the need to forgive, it makes your choice to avoid holding onto unforgiveness easier to make.

There are so many reasons why it is significant to let go of any bitterness, animosity, and feelings of resentment towards others. Those negative emotions paired with the inability to forgive can have an effect on you mentally, spiritually, physically, and emotionally. For you to have the capability to let go of any adverse feelings that you might have towards someone else you have to ask yourself the question why?

Why do I feel the way that I do towards them in this present moment?
What is preventing me from letting go of the situation and giving it to the Lord in the first place?
Why am I still holding onto it instead of choosing to have peace of mind?
What about what they did is causing me so much pain and negative feelings?

When you can get real with yourself and begin to be honest about what is preventing you from the process of forgiving others, it can make all the difference. Some of the scars and grievous wounds that we have run so deep you literally feel like you have a scar on top of scar on top of scar with no healing agent. The thing is the only One that can bandage even the deepest of wounds is the Lord Jesus Christ.

Isaiah 41:10 states “Fear not, for I am with you; Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, Yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.” The Lord is making the promise to us that He is the One that will pick you up when you get knocked down. He is the One that gives you His perfect strength in times of weakness, 2 Corinthians 12:9. We have to be willing to take Him at His Word knowing that He will never leave our side.

Forgiving another person can be one of the hardest things that you will ever have to do. Particularly if what was done to you was something that you feel doesn’t deserve your forgiveness. You have to be willing to let go of the pain that person caused you and give it all to God trusting that He is going to take care of it. Most people have a difficult time relinquishing control of the situation but it is necessary.

The Apostle Paul writes in Romans 12:19, “Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord.” God is making it known that He is the One that will handle the payment for the person that did you wrong. The vengeance that He displays on the one that intentionally hurt you is ten times worse than you could ever do to them.

The Lord has a way to make sure that justice is served. He is the God of absolute love, there is no greater love but He is also the God of law and order. I know that I have been on the receiving end of chastisement and the Lord dealing with me for something that I did to another person and I straightened myself out real quick. He will let you know when you are in the wrong.

The grace of God allows you to make mistakes but you have to recognize them when the Holy Spirit points them out to you and correct them. That includes when the Lord is prompting you to let go of a situation and let Him take care of it. Let Him take the weight and burdens off of your shoulders, Matthew 11:28-30.

If you understood all of the negative implications that came along with an unforgiving heart, you would let go of things with no problem. The thing is we can’t see the consequences right away. You best believe that the enemy will take full advantage of the legal rights that you are giving him to come into your life and destroy it. Unforgiveness is one of his most used weapons against believers and non-believers and he is a master at it.

The last thing that you want to do is allow a root of bitterness to spring up in you which will invite animosity, resentment, anger, and eventually hatred. It is for your own sake that you filter all of that ugliness out of your heart. The only way that you can completely get rid of those unfavorable characteristics is if you allow your heart to truly forgive.

The devil wants you to become that bitter person and will do everything in his power to ensure that it happens. It is human nature to want to get revenge and retaliation but you have to take the high road and truly give the situation over to God. One thing that the devil hates the most is a Christian that does not fall victim to his schemes. Build that radical forgiveness knowing that God’s love for you will ensure that nobody harms you and gets away with it.

He is not a man that He should lie (Numbers 23:19) and He puts His Word before His own name (Psalm 138:2). What that means is He is going to do what He said He would do, you just have to be willing to trust Him! There is no greater love than the love of God!

Below I am going to provide you with some Bible verses that you can meditate on regarding the importance of forgiveness:

Forgiveness towards others allows you to be forgiven:

Mark 11:25

“And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses.”

Here we can see that God’s Word is giving us explicit instructions on what we need to do to receive forgiveness from our Heavenly Father. In order for the Lord to pardon every one of our sins we must forgive everyone that has offended us regardless of what it is. Trust me; I know that it is not an easy thing to do. I have had to forgive people in my daily life that have treated me horribly and without reason.

I had to take a step back and assess the situation:

Was it really worth me going to sleep angry?
Who was going to be hurt the most if I kept this bitterness inside of me?
Do I trust the Lord to handle the situation for me?
Do I want to give this person that much power over me?

After I recognized that the need to forgive far outweighed the need for me to remain in a state of offense, I began to make it a practice to let things go. I had to put things into perspective; God gave His only Son Jesus Christ to die for every single one of our sins that we had committed or will commit. Why? One of the primary reasons Jesus died on the cross is so that we could receive forgiveness from our Heavenly Father which in turn would reconcile us back to Him.

Yet, we can’t forgive our brothers and sisters for things that they did to us years ago. Some people get offended if you look at them the wrong way and they will hold a grudge against you forever! I’m telling you it is not worth you being handed over to the devil and his demonic kingdom to have their way in your life. They will be more than happy to wreak havoc on you mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually, Matthew 18:34-35.

One of the misconceptions that people often have about forgiveness is that your forgiveness towards a person is saying that you are ok with what they did to you. That is so far from the truth; you don’t even have to have a relationship with them. What releasing those negative emotions does is release you from being affected by them.

Be cordial with him or her when you run into them and help if they need it. As Christians that is what our characters should reflect, we should radiate love. Aside from that, you don’t need to be around them any more than you have to.

I go into deeper detail as far as unforgiveness in my articles: Forgiveness: Learning How to Handle Offense, Spiritual Oppression-The Dangers of Open Doors to the Enemy-Part 2, Spiritual Oppression-The Dangers of Open Doors to the Enemy-Part 3, and The Importance of Forgiveness!

Unforgiveness prevents the Lord from hearing you:

Psalm 66:18

“If I regard iniquity in my heart, The Lord will not hear.”

Psalm 66 goes into great detail about all of the amazing things that God does in the lives of His children. The Psalmist explains that every one of the enemies of the Lord has to submit to Him (Psalm 66:3), how all the earth will worship and praise Him (Psalm 66:4), and describes how the Lord has the ability to make the sea turn into dry land (Psalm 66:6). So many great things specified in this first part of Psalm 66.

Then we go a little further into the Psalm and the writer begins to clarify how the Lord is also One who tests us and refines us as silver is refined (Psalm 66:10) and One who lays affliction on our backs (Psalm 66:11). So, as we can see here, God is not just One that exudes absolute love but He is also just; chastising those that He loves, Hebrews 12:6.

The Lord will discipline His children for all sin including the ones committed in our hearts. He does not take unforgiveness lightly. We are commanded to forgive and not asked to forgive. In essence when we fail to do so, we have committed a sin against one of God’s decrees. That is definitely not a place that you want to find yourself in.

As we take a look at the verse of Scripture that I have highlighted, Psalm 66:18, we can see that when we hold iniquity (immorality or sin) in our hearts the Lord will not hear us. He will not hear us when we come to Him in prayer, when we come to Him in intercession for ourselves or someone else, or when we are asking Him for forgiveness.

He requires us to radiate love, Colossians 3:14. In the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:8-13) it is unequivocally clear that we must forgive our debtors (transgressors) if we want our debts (transgressions) to be forgiven. Then Matthew goes onto say “…But deliver us from the evil one…” Matthew 6:13.

That is not a coincidence that the part right after forgiveness is discussing being delivered from the evil one (devil). Unforgiveness will give the enemy legal access to come into your life and create complete chaos and he knows it. That is why he makes it his mission to cause strife between families, relationships, friendships, and ministries. His hope is that it will create bitterness, resentment, hatred, and every other negative emotion you can think of.

I had to learn this lesson the hard way. Now it doesn’t matter to me what someone says, does, or how they act towards me; I do not allow it to create unforgiveness in my heart. I let it go and give it to God and He has taken care of the situation every single time without fail!

Unforgiveness will grieve the Holy Spirit:

Ephesians 4:30-31

“And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice.”

The Holy Spirit is the third Member of the Holy Trinity. He is a gift from God given to us because of the price that Jesus paid when He gave up His life for all of humanity. The Spirit of God is the One that will guide us into all truth, John 16:13. He will lead us in the right direction when we veer off course regarding our walk with the Lord Jesus Christ. He will bring the Word of God to our remembrance when we need it, John 14:26.

He is a person that has feelings as you can see by this letter that the Apostle Paul wrote to the Church at Ephesus. We can actually grieve the Holy Spirit by the things that we say, how we conduct ourselves, and the condition of our hearts. If you take a look at these verses of Scripture you can see that bitterness is the first unfavorable characteristic mentioned.

Bitterness in any heart is sure to lead to unforgiveness, the two walk hand and hand. There is no way that you can truly forgive a person that you have built up animosity for because of something that they did to you. It is extremely difficult. The unfortunate thing is those negative emotions will eat you up from the inside out and that is why the Lord wants His children to have nothing to do with them.

The word “put away” used in these passages is the Greek word aírō which one of the meanings is to remove. God is definitively letting us know that we are to REMOVE every one of those adverse traits listed in these Scriptures. They will lead to destruction in one way or another. Every one of them will open up doors to the enemy and he will gladly walk in.

Conclusion

There are so many repercussions to having the inability to forgive. Once you gain the realization of how important and crucial it is to forgive others not only for your own well-being but also for your relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.

One of the most dangerous things that unforgiveness does is allow Satan and his demonic kingdom to invade your space legally. It prevents you from receiving forgiveness from your Heavenly Father, it prevents the Lord from hearing you, and it grieves the Holy Spirit. Unforgiveness also affects you mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually.

It really is not worth you holding grudges, carrying resentment, and wanting to retaliate by taking matters into your own hands. If you feel like you are struggling with unforgiveness ask the Holy Spirit to guide you and give you strength to overcome that demonic stronghold. He did it for me and He can do it for you too! Forgive completely, move forward, and never look back!

I am linking other blogs pertaining to this topic below:

Forgiveness: Learning How to Handle Offense!

Spiritual Oppression-The Dangers of Open Doors to the Enemy-Part 2

Spiritual Oppression-The Dangers of Open Doors to the Enemy-Part 3

The Armor of God

The Power of Your Tongue!

The Importance of Forgiveness!

What does it mean to walk by Faith and not by Sight?

7 Steps to Fighting Spiritual Oppression-Real Talk!

Why Is the Cross of Christ so Significant?

Also, get your week started right! Check out my Positive Weekly Message Series down below:

Positive Thinking-Get Your Week Started Off Right! November 21, 2022