Forgiveness
Forgiveness is hard to give because it hurts to extend it to those who are undeserving and hard-hearted. It implies acceptance rather than legalistic demands of compensation for injury done. This makes for a costly operation. To release a wrong-doer instead of exacting a just penalty requires that we reach out in love. To do this we must reject the temptation to hold bitterness and resentment. All of this is contrary to our natural inclinations; thus the old adage, “To err is human, to forgive, divine.” We must have the Lord’s enabling in order to forgive others for hurts and disappointments.
Forgiveness is not forgetting the wrong done; some hurts are so deep that this would be impossible. We can forget the anger and hurt we felt, but the act we felt is branded in our minds. It does no good to pretend that the offense never took place. That fact must be accepted, not overlooked or disparaged as being unimportant. Ignoring and denial are forms of withdrawal and deceit and lead to hidden resentful anger.
Forgiveness takes place when the victim accepts the loss and/or injury done him and deliberately cancels the debt owed him by the offending person. Justice insists compensation be required from the inflicter of the injury, but forgiveness absorbs and accepts the wrong, and frees the guilty party.
Anger must be dealt with openly and honestly, not denied or disregarded. Either it must be vented in retaliation or the injured party must accept his own anger, bear the burden of it, and confess it in prayer. This will release him and set the other party free.
Revenge always hurts the retaliator far more than the one at whom it is leveled. Forgiveness is being willing to pay the cost of another’s wrong without asking for redress or vengeance. In other words, our pattern must be the gracious and substitutionary death of Christ. He willingly received all the hurt and evil of the entire human race in His own body on the tree to pay the debt for our guilt.
For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps:
Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously: Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed. (1 Peter 2:21-24)
He now offers what he has wrought as a free gift to undeserving and guilty persons so they can be free (Romans 6:23; John 10:28-30). Far from minimizing or overlooking sin, God demonstrated at Calvary the awful depths of sin when He paid the debt in full in order to forgive us. He dropped all charges against us on the ground that Jesus’ blood had satisfied the laws demand: “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.”
As nothing else, forgiveness takes us into the mysteries of grace where God forgives unconditionally on the basis of the substitutionary payment by another (Mark 11:25-26). By His enabling grace He desires us to go and dolikewise. One of the fruits of the Holy Spirit’s work in a life is the quality of meekness. It is a quality which is nurtured and abetted by practicing forgiveness. Meekness is actually gentleness, in the sense that a wild horse is gentled. This will harness all the energy, spirit and strength of the animal and channel it in constructive avenues.
This highly prized quality will cause us to be able to accept God’s dealings with us as being good, without resisting or disputing. It will surface in our dealings with other people who mistreat, insult or otherwise abuse us, giving patient endurance without retaliation. Meekness will also make us able to “bear one another’s burden’s” cheerfully and for Jesus’ sake, enabling us to enter into the mystery of Christ’s sufferings.
Because unforgiveness and the resentment and bitterness it generates is so deadly, it is not optional, but necessary that it be dealt with. Cancer and Arthritis spirits definitely root into this fertile ground. To be bitter and unforgiving costs far more than it is worth!
Conquering the Host of Hell by Win Worley ©1977, pp. 34-36.
The following is an excerpt from “Schizophrenia, Booklet #13″ by Pastor Win Worley. Copyright © 1983 by Win Worley, Revised © 1993. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including storage and retrieval system, without securing permission in writing from the publisher, WRW Publications, PO Box 852626, Mesquite, TX 75185.
If you’d like to obtain your own copy of not only this, but other materials authored by Win Worley, please contact WRW Publications a twww.wrwpublications.com
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