Forgiveness Series, Part 2,Ep 3-7
Welcome Back! I am your host Dawn Simmons, and in this episode of Conquering Our Unseen Enemies we are going to be discussing the second part of our 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 and we will talk about what is produced in our lives, or not produced, by a lack of forgiveness. Today we are going to start off reiterating what unforgiveness is and hit on our next 3 of the 10 points of the price we pay carrying unforgiveness. Through this series, we are also going to hear some compelling stories and 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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Let’s do a quick summary of what we discussed in part 1.
We defined, what is forgiveness? 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.
We also discussed the first three points of the importance of forgiveness for our own healing and deliverance.
Our first point: When we do not forgive, we may be creating Bitterness in our heart. We don’t want to give bitterness an opportunity to take root.
Point 2: When we do not forgive, we are not forgiven. We want to make sure we are forgiving others if we want to be forgiven ourselves.
Point 3: When we fail to forgive someone, we stay tied to that someone. Holding onto unforgiveness ties us to the person and the sin attached to the act and the unforgiveness of the act we are failing to forgive.
That was our first episode in a micro summary. Now let’s move on to the next 3 points we need to discuss, and I will share some stories as well. Before I bring up our first point, remember at the end when I encouraged you to ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you any areas in your heart where unforgiveness has a place? I had something interesting happen to me this past week which I will share today. I’m wondering if any of you have had one of those moments.
Alright, let’s get onto our next point, which because it is a continuation from part 1, is point 4.
Point 4: When we do not forgive others, are prayers are hindered.
I am teaching a class right now called, Moving Mountains Through Prayer, and it is a 7 week class where we discuss the elements of a prayer when you are in a time of your life where you need some mountain moving prayer. We go over 7 elements of prayer. I based the class on what I saw in Nehemiah, but I also bring in biblical background, we use videos from biblical places from our YouTube Channel and I bring in visual aids to bring the class to life. One of the things we discuss, one of the elements we address in a mountain moving prayer is repentance.
Mark talks about it this way in 11:22, “Have faith in God,” Jesus answered. “Truly[f] I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.” The thing with this verse, and the one similar to it in Matthew, is that people tend to stop before that last line. They want the “whatever you ask for in prayer part” but not so much the forgiving others part. This last line is what I call an “And if so”. You see, there is a condition attached there for the first part to be effective. You can have your prayers answered, “and when you pray” so here is where the condition begins that will have an affect on our prayers if we ignore it. God is not about giving us everything we want. That’s how many people see Him and then get disappointed because they don’t bother to read or care to follow through on the “And if so” If we hold something against someone, we know, we discussed it in part 1, that we need to forgive so that we are forgiven. For point 4, let’s now take it a step further because the issue goes beyond just not being forgiven. Our prayers on earth will be essentially silenced in heaven if we do not allow forgiveness into our hearts. Where am I getting that? Right here in 1 Peter 3: 7, “Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers.” The definition of hindered is: to create difficulties for (someone or something), resulting in delay or obstruction. I realize that the reference is to husbands and wives. We still need to follow the principle to our relationships beyond just husbands and wives, it’s a spiritual principle.
Ok, onto our next point.
Point 5: When we do not forgive, Satan is given opportunity.
If you have been listening to this podcast for any length of time, hopefully you have picked up on my continual message of all the opportunities Satan will seize if we allow him access into our lives. A lack of forgiveness creates one of those opportunities. Satan’s objective is to separate us from the Lord, to keep us apart from each other, to rob us of using our authority and understanding all that the Holy Spirit can provide to us. Let’s see how Paul explains it to us in 2 Corinthians 2, starting with verse 5. “If anyone has caused grief, he has not so much grieved me as he has grieved all of you to some extent—not to put it too severely. The punishment inflicted on him by the majority is sufficient. Now instead, you ought to forgive and comfort him, so that he will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. I urge you, therefore, to reaffirm your love for him. Another reason I wrote you was to see if you would stand the test and be obedient in everything. Anyone you forgive, I also forgive. And what I have forgiven—if there was anything to forgive—I have forgiven in the sight of Christ for your sake, in order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes.” Paul uses the word, “outwit.” Satan outwits us all the time because we are too ignorant of the Word. When we are ignorant, we don’t apply the principles in the Word and we end up with fragmented relationships, empty relationships, void places in our hearts and brokenness. By holding onto unforgiveness, we are holding onto something that is not our burden to carry. When Christ died for all of our sins, it covers everyone, not just who we want it to cover. When we don’t forgive, we come into alignment with what Satan wants for us and the other person. Satan wants hurt, anger, resentment, bitterness, anything that will serve to tear apart our willingness to forgive. When we carry that for a period of time, we begin to find ourselves in the condition that brings up our next point.
Point 6: When we do not forgive, we may find ourselves stumble in darkness
Being unwilling to forgive will, over time, begin to open doors in your life. The longer you hold onto those feelings associated with your unforgiveness, the more they will morph into other areas and pretty soon it isn’t just one person you don’t forgive, its 2, then 4, then it’s anyone who crosses you. I have a friend that has been hurt many times in her life and she has allowed all of that hurt to build up to where the slightest thing makes her bitter and vengeful. It’s even in the smallest things where she claims victory. Last week, she went somewhere and as she entered a business she held the door for another woman, most of us do that, it’s just human kindness. Do we always get a thank you, no, some people are just that way, or they are in deep thought, who knows. Sometimes it is irritating I admit. However, in this case, as my friend was leaving, that same woman happened to be leaving at the same time and as my friend opened the door, instead of again holding it, she purposely timed it so the door would slam closed on the woman. She wasn’t done there; she then went out and told everyone about it in celebration and in sharing it she berated the woman for her outfit. I can’t actually repeat her words, but that’s how petty she became over a stupid door. Is that what you want to become in your unforgiveness? Someone who takes everything to the extreme and becomes mean and rude to strike back at the world for hurting you? The more you allow yourself to go down that road, the more you will find your behavior changes, your heart changes and then you will wonder why people always hurt you and why you are alone. You will have a skewed view of relationships. John tells it to us this way, 1 John 2:9, “Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates a brother or sister[b] is still in the darkness. Anyone who loves their brother and sister[c] lives in the light, and there is nothing in them to make them stumble. But anyone who hates a brother or sister is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness. They do not know where they are going, because the darkness has blinded them.” I would say, my friend is pretty well blinded at this point. Don’t allow your unforgiveness to lead you to blindness, it’s never going to be worth it.
Now I want to share with you a story that happened to me last week. As I began this series, I too, was expecting that the Lord would remind me of anything I had hanging out there that I still had a bad feeling about, or a person I had bad feelings toward. Last week was our 20th wedding anniversary. Every year we try to go back to the restaurant where we had our first date. This year I wasn’t feeling great, but we had been planning the day for weeks, my husband took the week off, so I was going to go no matter what. The restaurant we went to is called Mission Burrito, it’s in Simi Valley, CA which is 2 cities over from where we live now. I love that place; I have been going there now for 35 years. Mission Burrito has the world’s best hard-shell tacos. It is the standard to which I measure all other tacos in the world. Anyhow, we went, had delicious tacos, and we thanked the owner and told him how much his restaurant meant to us. Then we were on our way to our next planned event, which sounds ridiculous, but it was to go to a place called Cinnabon. We love they’re cinnamon rolls and there is a place somewhat local where they still make them behind glass and you can watch them make them and we like to do that while we eat our Cinnabons. Its not some machine making them, it’s a person, we like that. For us to get to Cinnabon, it’s another 20 minutes or so in the opposite direction of our house. Going through Simi Valley, we drove through some streets and took a little walk down memory lane. We drove by the store where we met, we drove by places I lived before I met him. Then we drove by a neighborhood that I used to really like and as we drove by, I remembered a friend of mine who lived there. I’m going to call him, John. As we drove by the neighborhood, I remembered an incident with John that really irritated me. John and I were both regional managers at the same company so we were friends, not socially, but good work friends. One day, John, came up to me and was trying to get me to buy some tickets to a pancake breakfast at his church. I don’t usually like to buy tickets for those things, and at that time, I was a single mom, 4 kids, and money was something I needed to watch. I didn’t get child support or anything so I was on my own financially. When you have 4 young kids, going to something like that can also be difficult to manage. John, however, was doing a hard sell on these tickets so I relented and bought 5 tickets. Because I am not one to waste money, when the day came, I packed up the kids and we went to it. This church was packed, and I knew no one. My daughter was still stroller age, the boys were pretty young, 3 and maybe 4, and then 7. They were not all at an age where I could reasonably expect them to carry their plate and everything through the serving line and to a table, which there were none that had room for all of us. Given that it was a church, I sort of expected someone might be helpful and at least offer to help us get a seat, or something. John saw us there, didn’t really acknowledge me which I thought was odd but I was trying to just make it work. It ended up being a very frustrating morning. I vowed I would never, ever do that again. So that was the memory that flashed back up to me. When it flashed back, I was still baffled at how it all went down, but I was like, well, I guess you can’t expect people to be the way you think you would be to someone in that situation. It still bothered me, but I was on my way to Cinnabon, so I didn’t think about it much longer. That was Thursday. On Saturday, we went out of town about 2 hours away to a basketball game at a university where my son is part of the coaching staff. It happened to be homecoming and alumni night, which we were not a part of any of that, we were just going to see the game. We won by the way so that was fun. After the game, we were told to wait in a certain place near the locker room entrance on the gym floor so we could be introduced to the coach after he spoke with the team. While we were waiting, we were talking to the dad of one of the players. As we were standing there talking, I see someone walk across the gym. I watched the guy and said, “hmm, that guy looks a lot like John” but I hadn’t seen John for over 20 years, then I realized, that was John! So I yelled out, “John” John turns around, I start walking across the gym floor to him and he looks at me and says, “Dawn?” So John and I reconnected, he retired in 2013, I just retired last year to do Kingdom work full time. We chatted for a bit and in the back of my mind was that memory as we spoke. I was glaringly aware the Holy Spirit was telling me John never meant for that day to be a bad experience, let it go. After we finished talking, I walked away and said “Thank you, Lord.” I was surprised but not surprised at how the Lord handled that situation. Was that bad feeling holding me back from anything, no, but what it was doing was coming up every time I thought of John. I associated that feeling with him, attached it to him, if you will, without even realizing it. So, the Lord helped me to get rid of that and now when I remember John, I will think of him the way you would when you see an old friend and you know they are doing well.
This is a good stopping point for today. Now we have discussed 6 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:
This is Part 2 of our Series on Forgiveness
I gave you a micro summary of part 1 of the series, including the first 3 points
Our first point: When we do not forgive, we may be creating Bitterness in our heart. We don’t want to give bitterness an opportunity to take root.
Point 2: When we do not forgive, we are not forgiven. We want to make sure we are forgiving others if we want to be forgiven ourselves.
Point 3: When we fail to forgive someone, we stay tied to that someone. Holding onto unforgiveness ties us to the person and the sin attached to the act and the unforgiveness of the act we are failing to forgive.
Point 4: When we do not forgive others, are prayers are hindered.
Mark 11:22, 1 Peter 3: 7
Point 5: When we do not forgive, Satan is given opportunity.
2 Corinthians 2: 5
Point 6: When we do not forgive, we may find ourselves stumble in darkness
I told you about my friend acting petty and how it has affected her behavior and her heart
1 John 2:9
I shared my story about John and how the Lord helped me shed a bad memory I associated with John.
We encourage you:
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· I have enjoyed our time this week and look forward to spending time with you again next week!