Forgiveness Series, Part 1,Ep 3-6
Welcome Back! I am your host Dawn Simmons, and in this episode of Conquering Our Unseen Enemies we are going to be discussing the first part of a series on forgiveness. Through this series we will go over how a lack of forgiveness can prevent healing and deliverance, we will discuss the benefits of forgiveness, we will talk about what is produced by a lack of forgiveness. Today we are going to start off understanding what unforgiveness is and 10 points to the price we pay carrying it around in our lives. Through this series, we are also going to hear some stories that are compelling and will hopefully convince you to look at any areas of unforgiveness you are carrying. We can get rid of the weight and chains of bondage. We have all experienced it and many of us still are carrying it around, so let’s get to it and get rid of it.
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What is forgiveness? To be clear, forgiveness involves an intentional decision to let go of resentment and anger. The memory of the act that hurt or offended you may remain with you, but forgiveness will lessen that event’s hold over you. Over time, resentment turns to bitterness.
Why is forgiveness so hard? The majority of offenses that occur are not illegal acts, they may be intentional, but they are not illegal. When an act is illegal there is always hope for justice, an intervention that will attempt to make things right through a legal process. When you have been betrayed, when someone is taking advantage of your kindness, when someone is lying to you, whatever the offense is, it is a legitimate intentional act that caused a hurt. The bottom line is, we want what we have experienced to be made right or corrected in some way. The ones that hurt the most are those caused by someone we are closest to, our spouse or our family member. Those are the hurts that are deep and hard to overcome.
What happens when we do not overcome these offenses? We are going to discuss 10 points that illustrate the price we pray when we fail to forgive.
Here is our first point: Creating Bitterness in our heart
In other episodes we’ve talked about bitterness and insecurity and many other deep wounds we experience that have leave us with these influences in our lives if we don’t clear them out. When what happened to us wasn’t right, it is made worse by our reaction to it and enduring pain. Here is what we read in Hebrews 12 about bitterness affecting our lives: 14 Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. 15 See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.
I was talking to a man this week, we will call him, John, and within a few minutes of small talk conversation, he went on to talk about the medical issues his ex-wife was currently experiencing and the way he spoke of it was almost joyous. John’s marriage to this woman ended after multiple occurrences of her being unfaithful. I am sure that experience was difficult. There were children involved and that left John to raise them on his own. I understand where John was coming from in terms of the root of his pain. The issue here is that this marriage ended about 50 years ago and John went on to marry another wonderful woman in a marriage that has lasted 40 years. So when is enough enough on being resentful toward someone else? You have moved on in your life, done well with someone else, so when does the resentment end? In addition, why be joyous about this woman’s medical issues? Why does John want to willingly carry around this unforgiveness? Resentment equals unforgiveness, you can’t dance around it. Here is what happens when we hold onto unforgiveness. Unforgiveness is like taking a little plant of a rosary pea, which is a herbaceous flowering plant. It’s an invasive plant with leaves that wrap around trees, shrubs, whatever it can attach itself to. It produces pods of red seeds that are toxic to humans and animals. So we take that little plant, we know what it will grow to become, but because we are hurt, we don’t care what it will become. We plant it and we give it food, we nurture it and it grows and attaches itself to all it is near. You water it and pretty soon you see the pods forming and you feed it some more. Then one day, the pod breaks open and out pour these little red beads. You spent all this time growing this plant and now it has produced these little red beads and even though you know keeping these red beads, holding onto them is toxic, you decide to put them in your mouth and get a little taste of them. Unforgiveness works the same way. We hold onto it, we nurture it, we feed it with our thoughts, our anger, our desire for revenge, our wanting to destroy the other person and ultimately we lose sight of the danger and damage we are doing to ourselves, so much so that we cultivate our own poison. We knowingly and intentionally create a bitter poison in our lives.
Here is what the Lord tells Moses about a bitter root in Deuteronomy 29: 16 You yourselves know how we lived in Egypt and how we passed through the countries on the way here. 17 You saw among them their detestable images and idols of wood and stone, of silver and gold. 18 Make sure there is no man or woman, clan or tribe among you today whose heart turns away from the Lord our God to go and worship the gods of those nations; make sure there is no root among you that produces such bitter poison. 19 When such a person hears the words of this oath and they invoke a blessing on themselves, thinking, “I will be safe, even though I persist in going my own way,” they will bring disaster on the watered land as well as the dry. This is a spiritual truth regarding bitterness. When we fail to recognize unforgiveness in our lives, we set ourselves up for disaster. We cannot allow ourselves to be so deceived by our own heart of unforgiveness. To believe in Jesus, His coming, crucifixion and resurrection and our then receiving salvation from our belief in Him as our savior, does not negate this spiritual truth being active in our lives. When Jesus came, He fulfilled the law, He made spiritual truth accessible through his resurrection. What do I mean by that? Through His sacrifice, we no longer live by law, but by the grace that God provided through a spiritual sacrifice as well as a literal sacrifice. Grace allows us access we would not have otherwise. We are one with Him in Spirit and in truth, so we have access to spiritual truths, and we must accept the spiritual truth of our salvation by faith. We live by spiritual truth. When we are ignorant of spiritual truth or reject it, we are living in our own idea of truth which equals death.
Let’s switch gears and move onto our second point by asking a few questions. What is the most expensive thing you ever bought? Was it your house? Your car? A gift for someone? Have something in mind?
Now let me ask you, what is the cheapest gift you have ever given? You can be totally honest here because no one knows but you. Maybe it was something you regifted or something you found so it was completely free. Have something in mind?
Point 2: When we do not forgive, we are not forgiven
In John 3 we read this, For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. 19 This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. 21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.
As a believer, our salvation is the most expensive gift we have ever received. The costliest thing we are holding onto is our eternal life. If we continue to hold onto our forgiveness instead of giving it away, we are leading ourselves to a path of death. In Matthew 6, Jesus tells it to us this way: 14 For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
When we choose not to forgive, we are choosing our own life over the life that Jesus gave for us. We are creating a separation between us and Him. I think where people get lost, particularly when the root of unforgiveness involves a tragic event, they associate the hate, pain, bitterness in their heart with accountability. The person who is responsible for the offense is not affected by our lack of forgiveness the way we are affected by our lack of forgiveness. Most of the time, they aren’t even aware of it and even if they were, they wouldn’t care. We jeopardize ourselves and we pay the price for unforgiveness, no one else, just us. The price the offender pays for their acts are not ours to extract. We hand it over to the Lord and let Him execute judgment. We will never win by seeking to execute our own judgment, it doesn’t work. Whatever you think you will extract by holding onto the unforgiveness will actually cost you everything you have. There will be a point one day when you can no longer turn back, you will have chosen your eternity.
That brings me to my next point.
Point 3: When we fail to forgive someone, we stay tied to that someone.
When you have had a wrong against you and the wrong is such that it requires a forgiveness, holding onto your forgiveness of that person is what turns it to unforgiveness. By carrying around the unforgiveness of that person, you are creating a relationship to that person that functions like a warped soul tie. You will stay attached to that sin because you are anchoring yourself to it, instead of giving it to the rightful owner, the Lord. Whether you choose to carry it is entirely on you, but it will not hold back the other person. Your lack of forgiveness will not exact a punishment on that person, but rather it becomes your own chain of sin tied to the sin related to that person. If you are carrying something within you that is so bad that you cannot forgive them, then you are keeping that circumstance in your life by choice. Over time you will find that those around you do not want to be tied to your unforgiveness. Your circles will shrink of people willing to listen or carry on your burden, not because they don’t love you, but because the healthy alternative is to release that person, give it all to the Lord, gain your freedom in Him and move forward in your life with the Lord by your side. I don’t want to continually think about the people who have wronged me. I cannot heal if I do not allow forgiveness to come in to my heart and remove the raw, remove the pain, remove the scars. I want a better life for myself where I have a life I will be proud to stand before the Lord when my time comes.
So far we have discussed 3 of the 10 points of the price we pay carrying unforgiveness around in our lives. We still have so many more areas to discuss as we continue this series on Forgiveness. In the people that I work with on an individual basis, this forgiveness issue comes up quite frequently. We need to make sure we address this so that the Accuser has nothing to hold against us. As we continue through this series, ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you any areas in your heart where unforgiveness has a place. Many times we have forgotten about it, but the Lord wants us to take care of old pains and get a clean heart filled with Him.
I hope this has been time that inspires you to want to learn to grow in your relationship with the Lord and build your desire to partner with Him. We want to grow in Him and learn how to work with Him to build the Kingdom and Conquer Our Unseen Enemies. The more we grow the more our life will change, and you can help change the lives of anyone around you who is willing.
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As always, let’s discuss our Top Show points:
Series on forgiveness. We will go over how a lack of forgiveness can prevent healing and deliverance,
Today we discussed an understanding what unforgiveness is and we talked about 3 of 10 points to the price we pay carrying it around in our lives.
Through this series, we are also going to hear some stories that are compelling and will hopefully convince you to look at any areas of unforgiveness you are carrying. We can get rid of the weight and chains of bondage. We have all experienced it and many of us still are carrying it around, so let’s get to it and get rid of it.
What is forgiveness? To be clear, forgiveness involves an intentional decision to let go of resentment and anger.
Why is forgiveness so hard? The majority of offenses that occur are not illegal acts, they may be intentional, but they are not illegal and we want justice for being wronged
The ones that hurt the most are those we are closest to, our spouse or our family member. Those are the ones that are deep and hard to overcome.
We are going to discuss 10 points that illustrate the price we pray when we fail to forgive.
Here is our first point: Creating Bitterness in our heart
Hebrews 12
Story of John still holding onto bitterness against his ex-wife from over 50 years ago
Resentment equals unforgiveness
Unforgiveness is like a plant of rosary pea, which is a flowering plant that produces toxic seeds in our life that we embrace and want to taste.
We often nurture, feed and hold onto unforgiveness losing sight of the danger and damage we are doing to ourselves
Bitter root in Deuteronomy 29:
When we fail to recognize unforgiveness in our lives, we set ourselves up for disaster. We cannot allow ourselves to be so deceived by our own heart of unforgiveness.
Point 2: When we do not forgive, we are not forgiven
John 3 the price Jesus paid so we are forgiven without any cost to ourselves. As a believer, our salvation is the most expensive gift we have ever received. The costliest thing we are holding onto is our eternal life. If we continue to hold onto our forgiveness instead of giving it away, we are leading ourselves to a path of death.
In Matthew 6, Jesus tell it to us this way: 14 For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
When we choose not to forgive, we are choosing our own life over the life that Jesus gave for us. We are creating a separation between us and Him.
Point 3: When we fail to forgive someone, we stay tied to that someone.
By carrying around the unforgiveness of that person, you are creating a relationship to that person that functions like a warped soul tie. You will stay attached to that sin because you are anchoring yourself to it, instead of giving it to the rightful owner, the Lord.
Whether you choose to carry it is entirely on you, but it will not hold back the other person. Your lack of forgiveness is not a punishment on that person, but becomes your own sin tied to that person.
Over time you will find that those around you do not want to be tied to your unforgiveness. Your circles will shrink of people willing to listen or carry on your burden, not because they don’t love you, but because the healthy alternative is to release that person, give it all to the Lord, gain your freedom in Him and move forward in your life with the Lord by your side.
We need to make sure we address this so that the Accuser has nothing to hold against us. As we continue through this series, ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you any areas in your heart where unforgiveness has a place.
We encourage you:
· To have an active Bible reading plan, if you want a personal relationship with the Lord, you need to be active about reading His word.
· If you want to learn more about how to Hear God's Voice, visit our website, lovingconversationssalo.com. My book, Loving Conversations: How to Pray and Hear God's Voice has helped so many people in their relationship with the Lord, check out the testimonials. Available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble or Walmart. Those are also available on our website www.lovingconversationssalo.com.
· Follow us in Instagram, @conqueringourunseenenemies
· Conference 3/23, Camarillo, CA 8:30-noon, it’s called Restore and it is a Holy Spirit Revival, if you are in the area, ticket information can be found in show notes or on our Instagram pages, email, contact@conqueringourunseenenemies.com and I can send you the link.
· I have enjoyed our time this week and look forward to spending time with you again next week!