15
One Thing You Can’t Afford to NOT Do.
A couple years ago I had a lot of resentment and bitterness toward people I felt had let me down. I was weighed down by unforgiveness. During this time I started reading a book called Total Forgiveness by R.T. Kendall, which had a part in it that hit me hard:
“A refusal to forgive means that God stands back and lets you cope with your problems in your own strength.”
And I found this to be very true. When I held onto my unforgiveness, it was as if I was sapped of all strength. It was as if I was weighed down and chained to my dark and bitter thoughts. Joy had been evading me.
I began to start forgiving. God saw my obedience and began to bless me with peace, joy, and true freedom.
Is there someone you need to forgive? How long do you want to let yourself be chained by resentment? The joy of the Lord is your strength, so forgive and get it back!
Michelle
June 15th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
One thing that I have learned from Michelle is that when one forgives, you have to recognize that the person may not change. They may not be sorry for how they hurt you. They may always treat you that way. In spite of that, you are able to experience freedom by forgiving them and loving them without condition of them changing or ’saying sorry first’. Let the freedom Christ brought through the forgiveness of wrongs.
June 18th, 2009 at 7:07 am
I think that is what makes forgiving hard sometimes…we’d feel a lot better if they begged for it at our feet. But often that does not happen. Another quote from the book I read is this: “When we know and face fully what they did, and accept in our hearts that they will be blessed without any consequence for their wrong, we cross over into a supernatural realm. We begin to be a little more like Jesus, to change into the image of Christ.” This does not mean that we have to let people walk all over us and abuse us. Forgiveness is an issue of the heart, and when we get to the place where we are okay with that person being blessed by God regardless of what they did…wow…that certainly is a sign that God has worked on your heart!