The Power of Forgiveness
February 11, 2014
The Power of Forgiveness
Matthew 6:12-15 (Amplified)
And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven (left, remitted, and let go of the debts, and have given up resentment against) our debtors.
13And lead (bring) us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
14For if you forgive people their trespasses [their reckless and willful sins, leaving them, letting them go, and giving up resentment], your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
15But if you do not forgive others their trespasses [their reckless and willful sins, leaving them, letting them go, and giving up resentment], neither will your Father forgive you your trespasses.
The Lord began to show and make real today the power and the strongholds over our lives that we give to satan because of our unwillingness to forgive. We have all experienced things in our lives that have hurt us and maybe even devastated us. Some of us are still carrying the trauma and the wounds from past relationships or encounters with someone that has broken our trust, who may have deeply hurt or victimized us, either emotionally, spiritually or physically. While we may think we have moved on in our life, we still carry those things in our heart. Somehow we can’t seem too or really don’t want to let them go. The reality is that many that are carrying these past wounds and hurts have not forgiven their offenders. In fact, they don’t want to forgive them. What we fail to realize is that our unwillingness to forgive is the cause of issues that are causing us to fail in our relationships with God and man. Some blame God for letting things happen in their lives that caused this trauma. As a result they have trouble with having a relationship with Him because they haven’t forgiven God for not intervening on their behalf.
We live in a world that is still under the darkness of the god of this world. Jesus Christ provided for us the way of light and truth whereby we could come out of the darkness and abide in His marvelous light. That doesn’t mean that the darkness of this world won’t and doesn’t touch our natural lives, it does. Our natural man still abides in a world of sin and death. Jesus even told us through the words that He spoke to His disciples that we would experience unpleasant things. In John 16:33 he speaks to his disciples, “These things I have spoken unto you, that in me you might have peace. In the world you shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” God hasn’t yet delivered us out of the effects of the world and the consequences of sin, but He has given His holy presence to us through the Holy Spirit. He overcame the world through His love and that is the spirit of overcoming that must dwell in us. The only thing that can set us free from the bondage of our hurts and the fears that they have created is the love of God. When we carry an offense then it becomes a fear in us that someone else is going to hurt us again. It hinders and breaks our ability to have good and healthy relationships in certain aspects of our lives because of the fear brought about by that hurt. We may not want it to be that way, but it is a cycle that keeps repeating itself and may result in us being the one that is hurting others when secretly, we are trying to protect ourselves.
Forgiveness is key to our being able to be healed and the restoration of right relationship with both God and man. Jesus walked out the example before us; he forgave and released the very ones that inflicted such unfathomable pain and suffering and death upon HIm. The fact is, that everyone one of us was guilty of driving those spikes into His hands and feet. We were simply represented by the ones who actually did it. It was the sin in all of us that nailed the Lamb of God to the cross that He might forgive our sins. We didn’t deserve it. We could never be good enough to earn it and yet He did it out of love. The love of God has to be the power in you to let go of your offenses and release your offender(s). More than we realize, the offenders and perpetrators of hurt and sin may hate themselves, even as much as they have been hated because they are ruled by the power of sin in their own lives and are themselves victims to it. We all need to forgive even as we have been forgiven.
Jesus says that if we are unwilling to forgive, then we have hindered and blocked our own forgiveness from God. There are times when we feel we can’t forgive, the hurt is too deep and the offenses to great. You may be right, we can’t, but the Christ in us can. His love is great enough, deep enough and high enough. Forgiveness most often doesn’t begin as an emotion that we feel, but as an action of our will, a choice that we make. 1 John 2:9-11 says, “Whoever says he is in the Light and [yet] hates his brother [Christian, born-again child of God his Father] is in darkness even until now.
10Whoever loves his brother [believer] abides (lives) in the Light, and in It or in him there is no occasion for stumbling or cause for error or sin.
11But he who hates (detests, despises) his brother in Christ] is in darkness and walking (living) in the dark; he is straying and does not perceive or know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.” You see hate and unwillingness to forgive are the gateways to darkness and the roadblocks to God’s love and right relationship with him. It can end up hurting us much more than the person we are unwilling to forgive. It can give place to mental, emotional and physical problems in our lives because we are holding on to offenses. In order to close that door of satan’s access to our lives we have to release forgiveness. It is not in our natural might or love to forgive, but in the power of the mighty One of love within us. Receive your healing and deliverance today as you release forgiveness to those that have offended and hurt you. God wants you to be whole. Unwillingness to forgive will always make you a broken person.
What if they hurt me again? The same love that continues to forgive your offenses can continue to forgive theirs. As Christians you possess it, but only you can release it. Complete the cycle of love and forgiveness through your life and the choices you make today and set yourself free as well as the one you forgive.
Blessings,
kent
The Power of Forgiveness
December 13, 2013
The Power of Forgiveness
Matthew 6:12-15 (Amplified)
And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven (left, remitted, and let go of the debts, and have given up resentment against) our debtors.
13And lead (bring) us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
14For if you forgive people their trespasses [their reckless and willful sins, leaving them, letting them go, and giving up resentment], your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
15But if you do not forgive others their trespasses [their reckless and willful sins, leaving them, letting them go, and giving up resentment], neither will your Father forgive you your trespasses.
The Lord began to show and make real today the power and the strongholds over our lives that we give to satan because of our unwillingness to forgive. We have all experienced things in our lives that have hurt us and maybe even devastated us. Some of us are still carrying the trauma and the wounds from past relationships or encounters with someone that has broken our trust, who may have deeply hurt or victimized us, either emotionally, spiritually or physically. While we may think we have moved on in our life, we still carry those things in our heart. Somehow we can’t seem too or really don’t want to let them go. The reality is that many that are carrying these past wounds and hurts have not forgiven their offenders. In fact, they don’t want to forgive them. What we fail to realize is that our unwillingness to forgive is the cause of issues that are causing us to fail in our relationships with God and man. Some blame God for letting things happen in their lives that caused this trauma. As a result they have trouble with having a relationship with Him because they haven’t forgiven God for not intervening on their behalf.
We live in a world that is still under the darkness of the god of this world. Jesus Christ provided for us the way of light and truth whereby we could come out of the darkness and abide in His marvelous light. That doesn’t mean that the darkness of this world won’t and doesn’t touch our natural lives, it does. Our natural man still abides in a world of sin and death. Jesus even told us through the words that He spoke to His disciples that we would experience unpleasant things. In John 16:33 he speaks to his disciples, “These things I have spoken unto you, that in me you might have peace. In the world you shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” God hasn’t yet delivered us out of the effects of the world and the consequences of sin, but He has given His holy presence to us through the Holy Spirit. He overcame the world through His love and that is the spirit of overcoming that must dwell in us. The only thing that can set us free from the bondage of our hurts and the fears that they have created is the love of God. When we carry an offense then it becomes a fear in us that someone else is going to hurt us again. It hinders and breaks our ability to have good and healthy relationships in certain aspects of our lives because of the fear brought about by that hurt. We may not want it to be that way, but it is a cycle that keeps repeating itself and may result in us being the one that is hurting others when secretly, we are trying to protect ourselves.
Forgiveness is key to our being able to be healed and the restoration of right relationship with both God and man. Jesus walked out the example before us; he forgave and released the very ones that inflicted such unfathomable pain and suffering and death upon HIm. The fact is, that everyone one of us was guilty of driving those spikes into His hands and feet. We were simply represented by the ones who actually did it. It was the sin in all of us that nailed the Lamb of God to the cross that He might forgive our sins. We didn’t deserve it. We could never be good enough to earn it and yet He did it out of love. The love of God has to be the power in you to let go of your offenses and release your offender(s). More than we realize, the offenders and perpetrators of hurt and sin may hate themselves, even as much as they have been hated because they are ruled by the power of sin in their own lives and are themselves victims to it. We all need to forgive even as we have been forgiven.
Jesus says that if we are unwilling to forgive, then we have hindered and blocked our own forgiveness from God. There are times when we feel we can’t forgive, the hurt is too deep and the offenses to great. You may be right, we can’t, but the Christ in us can. His love is great enough, deep enough and high enough. Forgiveness most often doesn’t begin as an emotion that we feel, but as an action of our will, a choice that we make. 1 John 2:9-11 says, “Whoever says he is in the Light and [yet] hates his brother [Christian, born-again child of God his Father] is in darkness even until now.
10Whoever loves his brother [believer] abides (lives) in the Light, and in It or in him there is no occasion for stumbling or cause for error or sin.
11But he who hates (detests, despises) his brother in Christ] is in darkness and walking (living) in the dark; he is straying and does not perceive or know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.” You see hate and unwillingness to forgive are the gateways to darkness and the roadblocks to God’s love and right relationship with him. It can end up hurting us much more than the person we are unwilling to forgive. It can give place to mental, emotional and physical problems in our lives because we are holding on to offenses. In order to close that door of satan’s access to our lives we have to release forgiveness. It is not in our natural might or love to forgive, but in the power of the mighty One of love within us. Receive your healing and deliverance today as you release forgiveness to those that have offended and hurt you. God wants you to be whole. Unwillingness to forgive will always make you a broken person.
What if they hurt me again? The same love that continues to forgive your offenses can continue to forgive theirs. As Christians you possess it, but only you can release it. Complete the cycle of love and forgiveness through your life and the choices you make today and set yourself free as well as the one you forgive.
Blessings,
kent
How Serious are We?
September 23, 2013
Matthew 11:12 (Amplified)
And from the days of John the Baptist until the present time, the kingdom of heaven has endured violent assault, and violent men seize it by force [as a precious prize—a share in the heavenly kingdom is sought with most ardent zeal and intense exertion].
How Serious are We?
God is looking for violent men and women, not in the sense of destruction and hurt, but violent in the sense of zeal and determination. We live in the midst of a complacent church, fat, full of itself and, in its own eyes, having need of nothing. Because it has need of nothing, it has the power to do nothing. It is like a cow fattened in the pasture thinking it has it all and not realizing that it is ripe for the sacrifice.
In this hour God is sounding a trumpet and a call to arms. He is looking for violent men and women who are no longer content with mediocrity and religion. He is raising up a hungry people that are coming forth to seize the kingdom of God by force. They are serious about a relationship with their God and they will allow nothing to dissuade them from the blessing and the promise they have in Christ Jesus. They are God-chasers, kingdom warriors and believers of the highest order. They often don’t sit well with the religious system, because they have become radical in their pursuit of truth and power and love. They no longer are content to sit with the masses on Sunday morning, because they are intent upon breaking through to get their answer and see their miracle.
The Lord gave me this scripture as an example in Luke 5:17-26: “One day as he was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law, who had come from every village of Galilee and from Judea and Jerusalem, were sitting there. And the power of the Lord was present for him to heal the sick. 18Some men came carrying a paralytic on a mat and tried to take him into the house to lay him before Jesus. 19When they could not find a way to do this because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and lowered him on his mat through the tiles into the middle of the crowd, right in front of Jesus.
20When Jesus saw their faith, he said, “Friend, your sins are forgiven.”
21The Pharisees and the teachers of the law began thinking to themselves, “Who is this fellow who speaks blasphemy? Who can forgive sins but God alone?”
22Jesus knew what they were thinking and asked, “Why are you thinking these things in your hearts? 23Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’? 24But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins….” He said to the paralyzed man, “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.” 25Immediately he stood up in front of them, took what he had been lying on and went home praising God. 26Everyone was amazed and gave praise to God. They were filled with awe and said, “We have seen remarkable things today.”” These friends of the paralytic are examples of the kind of violence that we are talking about. Even though everything in the natural told them that they couldn’t get through to Jesus; they just needed to be one of the crowd, they refused to be denied. They started thinking and acting out of the box. They had such faith and confidence in Jesus that they knew that if they could just reach Him they could have what they were petitioning Him for. It was no different with the woman with the issue of blood. She believed if she could just touch the hem of Jesus’ garment she would be healed. God is looking for a people with that kind of tenacity and faith. They refuse to be denied. They are violent kingdom people that will storm the gates of heaven with prayer, intercession and acts of faith until they have laid hold of the promises of God.
If God has given you a word or a promise you hold on to it and you fight for it. Don’t allow the enemy to rob it from you. Just because it has been a long time, it hasn’t come to pass and everything in the natural says that it can’t happen. God is a God that keeps His covenant and He is a promise keeper. That is not to say that you will not be tested and tried. Hebrew 10:23 says, “Let us hold fast the profession of [our] faith without wavering; (for he [is] faithful that promised;)” Stand in the battle and fight the good fight of faith and keep your confession. Take your promises before God often and speak to Him out loud that you are standing upon His promises and that you refuse to be denied. Fight the good fight of faith and don’t relinquish the promise. It is yours. He gave it to you and He gave it to us. Now let us become a violent body of Christ who are content with no less than all that God has promised to us. Let us take it with violence, zeal and uncompromising faith. He has created you to prevail and to have dominion. How serious are you?
Blessings,
kent
