The divine power of forgiveness

Perfected forgiveness is part of His perfect love, and right now, the Holy Spirit is working out this aspect of salvation...

By Helen Gardiner

SOME years ago, when God called us to lead a local church, He gave us this Scripture from Micah 4:6&7: "'In that day,' says the Lord, 'I will assemble the lame, I will gather the outcast and those whom I have afflicted; I will make the lame a remnant, and the outcast a strong nation ...'"

God's promise to recreate such ones into a strong people is wonderful, and we are beginning to see Him being faithful to His word.

When one sets out to work with such people, understandably, one can think that a major key for the leaders of such, is to have the ability to minister much tender, loving care -- these people are obviously hurting greatly...

But the major key, I have come to discover, is in fact in the hands of such people themselves. It lies in their ability to forgive.

Today, most in the Body of Christ have suffered much rejection and hurt and offence in their lives. A major strategy of the enemy, especially these days, is to inflict horrendous abuse upon those destined to become God's little ones. But I believe that where sin abounds, grace will much more abound; and the ability to forgive and to keep on forgiving is truly Divine.

Perfected forgiveness is part of His perfect love, and right now, the Holy Spirit, as He is bringing the Bride into greater perfection, is working out this aspect of salvation.

As that is perfected, the release from torment and demonic bondage in the Body of Christ will be enormous. In most cases, where people have remained demonically afflicted and bound in certain areas, it is because there have still been vestiges of unforgiveness in their hearts.

Perfected forgiveness is invariably a process. It is Divine, but it takes time -- and our total co-operation with God.

I remember some years ago, it became the thing to do in counselling sessions and during public church teachings, to get people to write on a piece of paper a list of the names of people against whom they bore unforgiveness for various reasons. At the end of the session a prayer would be prayed and the paper would be torn up and voila, the person was now free. But it seldom seems to work like that. I know many embittered Christians, riddled with unforgiveness, and some are in leadership and should be mature.

Everyday, you see, there is the potential for fresh offence and hurt, as long as we are alive to our souls and preoccupied with the self-life and our personal egos. When we can co-operate with the Holy Spirit and put to death our carnal nature, walking in the Spirit, it becomes a whole lot easier.

As we pursue Jesus Christ and His Kingdom, we do find that in Him we have everything we need that pertains to life and Godliness and we become partakers of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:3&4). If we want to be like Jesus we will be brought to a place where we can pray from our hearts for those who would hurt and harm us, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do."

As I have dealt with unforgiveness in my own heart, and worked with others, I have come to realise that when you cling to unforgiveness, you becomes incredibly contaminated and you have such an open doorway for the enemy. Unforgiving people have so much anger and they are hypersensitive. In fact, many of their hurts and offences are not real and totally unjustified. The truth is that all too often they are besieged by tormenting and wild imaginings, often misinterpreting words and actions of others.

"Oh, but I've worked through unforgiveness and I believe I've dealt with everything. Besides, things are going really well for me now, so all that must be dealt with," is what we may be thinking right now.

But, what would happen, if tomorrow, the bottom fell out of your world in a sense -- especially if someone really hurt you, would that hurt, dredge up all the past hurts and reveal an ugly root of bitterness?

Bitterness is extreme unforgiveness and it is an open door for a bond of iniquity. In Acts 8:9-24, we find the account of Simon the sorcerer and in verse 23, Peter says to him, "For I see that you are poisoned by bitterness and bound by iniquity."

How can you know if you're free of unforgiveness and bitterness? One indication is an absence of anger -- no matter what buttons others may press. Another is when we find we can no longer remember the specifics of any offensive act.

Jesus' kind of forgiveness, not only forgives, but also forgets. Jeremiah 31:34 says (God is speaking): "I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more."

Psalm 103: 12 says, "As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us."

There is no such thing in the Kingdom of God as, "I can forgive, but I cannot forget." If we will co-operate with God, we will actually forget. We will find we do not have the ability or the desire to write books or give testimony about the awful things that have been done to us.

I know some people have had awful experiences which they have had to work through, and then they have been encouraged to write to their offenders and forgive them for various abuses ... But, I think, in that kind of exercise, hearts can still very impure, and often the hurt one is wanting to just get at the offenders and let them know how much they have been hurt; and the offenders are often totally baffled by many of the accusations.

The better way is just to work with the Lord, and allow Him to give you light, not least of all on your own heart. Allow Him to put things into perspective over time; and allow Him to bring you through like Joseph where you can see that He works everything to your good as you seek to follow after Him.

I find it interesting in the account of Job how his friends, who had knowledge but not understanding (and consequently caused Job increased suffering), had to be forgiven by Job --and that was before the Lord restored Job's losses and gave him twice as much as before.

Job had to pray for his friends first, and Job's willingness to do that indicated his forgiveness of them.

Some of us need totally renewed minds: in that we need to count it all joy when we have the opportunity to exercise Christ's forgiveness. We are here on earth to glorify Jesus, and how much more can we glorify Him than in suffering, offence and betrayal!

In my walk with the Lord, I have received wonderful support from certain people, especially my nearest and dearest. But I've also encountered more than a few Judases, and I must confess that the latter have been used more for God's refining processes in my life than the former.

In his book entitled, Naked And Not Ashamed, T D Jakes writes, "We all want to be surrounded by a friend like John, whose loving head lay firmly on Jesus' breast. We may long for the protective instincts of a friend like Peter, who stood ready to attack every negative force that would come against Jesus. In his misdirected love, Peter even withstood Jesus to His face over His determination to die for mankind.

"But the truth of the matter is, Jesus could have accomplished His goal without Peter, James or John; but without Judas He would never have reached the hope of His calling!

"Leave my Judas alone. I need him in my life. He is my mysterious friend, the one who aids me without even knowing it. When you encounter a Judas in your life, remember that it is his actions that carry out the purpose of God in your life! Look back over your life and understand that it is persecution that strengthens you. It is the struggles and the traumas we face that help us persevere."

I used to be unforgiving many years ago; demanding of people and hypersensitive, but as I have been pressing into Jesus, He has been renewing me drastically within. As one becomes increasingly more intimate with the Lord and one comes to know Him and His love and ever abiding presence increasingly more, one ceases to take offence and get hurt and make selfish demands on others.

Nothing heals a marriage better than when both parties really start getting into Jesus. When you know Him and His love and enjoy constant fellowship with the Holy Spirit, you cease to be dependent on others for joy and fulfilment.

When there are Spirit-led love relationships with the other parts of the Body, between husbands and wives and among families, that is a wonderful bonus. But, there is no such thing as loneliness for someone who has moved beyond religion and found Jesus Christ. It is wonderfully liberating when we can set people free to be the people God wants them to be, rather than making them try to be what we want or need them to be.

For every problem, situation or circumstance -- every problem marriage -- all we really need is more of Jesus Christ in us. Through Him, we can overcome anything.

In a book entitled, Blessings by Mary Craig, the following account, to the glory of God, is contained:

"In the concentration camp of Ravenbruck, the graveyard of so many human hopes and desires, an unknown prisoner wrote this prayer on a torn scrap of wrapping-paper, and left it by the body of a dead child:

"'O Lord, remember not only the men and women of good will, but also those of ill-will. But do not remember all the suffering they have inflicted on us; remember the fruits we have bought, thanks to this suffering -- our comradeship, our loyalty, our humility, our courage, our generosity, the greatness of heart which has grown out of all this, and when they come to judgement, let all the fruits which we have borne be their forgiveness.'"

Yes, one day there will be judgement; the wicked will be punished; but right now, the Bridegroom wants His Bride to be perfected in loving forgiveness and to be brought to the place where each one would be able to pray the same kind of prayer from the heart in the type of situation quoted by Mary Craig.

When Jesus was dying on the cross, He prayed for His murderers, "Father forgive them for they know not what they do."

The martyr Stephen prayed likewise when he was being stoned.

Such a heart of perfect forgiveness is noble and Divine; impossible without God, but with Jesus fully formed within a man or woman or even a child, it is not such a difficult thing.

Let us press on to such glorious liberty... from the chains and torment of unforgiveness.

Here is a helpful, comprehensive and Word-based prayer on forgiveness from Germaine Copeland (Prayers That Avail Much):

"Father, I forgive everyone who has trespassed against me, so that You can forgive me my trespasses. Now, having received the Holy Spirit and being led and directed by Him, if I forgive the sins of anyone they are forgiven; if I retain the sins of anyone, they are retained.

"Father, Your Word says, 'Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you (Matthew 5:44).'

"I come before you in Jesus' name to lift -------- before You. I invoke blessings upon him/her and pray for his/her happiness. I implore Your blessings upon him/her.

"Father, not only will I pray for --------, but I set myself to treat him/her well. I will be merciful, sympathetic, tender, responsive, and compassionate toward -------- even as You are, Father.

"I am an imitator of You, and I can do all things through Christ Jesus Who strengthens me.

"Father, I thank You that I have great peace in this situation, for I love Your law and refuse to take offence toward --------.

"Jesus, I am blessed -- happy and to be envied -- because I take no offence in You and refuse to be hurt or resentful or annoyed or repelled or made to stumble (whatever may occur).

"And now, Father, I roll this work upon You -- commit and trust it wholly to You; and believe that You will cause my thoughts to come into agreement with Your will, and so shall my plans be established and succeed.

"In Jesus' name, amen."