Lessons on Unforgiveness: a Personal Testimony on the Power of Forgiving

Mike has been teaching us about unforgiveness for a couple weeks now. I am so glad he is leading our body into this cleansing!! This issue of unforgiveness is particularly dear to my heart. I lived a good deal of my young adult life in chains to irrational and negative thoughts. These thoughts were not reflective of the “mind of Christ” that had been put in me upon my salvation. I found myself in college desperately longing to serve my precious Jesus with all my mind, body and spirit. However, I was paralyzed by fear, judgment, inferiority, hurt and bitterness. I remember feeling so guilty for the thoughts that pillaged my mind, I found myself suicidal and feeling life was worthless. How does a precious Daughter of the King get to this point??

I began praying specifically that the Lord would come in and clean out the cobwebs that were causing such inability to serve Him. I asked for every nook and cranny of my heart to be wiped clean, for God to bring the darkness into light, and for my heart to be cleansed from anything that wasn’t from Christ. Little did I know just what I was asking. The next several months were very painful, but proved to be very rewarding. He led me to a book that I want to share with the body in light of what He has been teaching us through Mike on Sunday mornings.

“Many Christians I deal with [have] their minds filled with such confusion that their daily walk with Christ is unfulfilling and unproductive. When they try to pray, they begin thinking about a million other things they should be doing. When they sit down to read the Bible or a good Christian book, they can’t concentrate, or they read for several minutes and suddenly realize that their thoughts have been a million miles away. When they have an opportunity to serve the Lord in some way, they are brought up short by discouraging thoughts of self-doubt: ‘I’m not a strong enough Christian’; ‘I don’t know enough about the Bible’; ‘I’m still plagued by sinful thoughts’; ‘I don’t have many spiritual gifts.’ Instead of being victorious, productive, joy-filled Christians, they trudge through life under a cloud just trying to hang on until Jesus comes.” - Neil Anderson
The Bondage Breaker (pg. 18)

“I would estimate that only about 15% of the evangelical Christian community is living a free and productive life in Christ. These believers know who they are in Christ, they have meaningful devotions, and they are bearing fruit. How tragic! Being alive and free in Christ is the birthright of EVERY child of God. We don’t have to live a carnal life- we can live a liberated life in Christ.”
- Neil Anderson
The Bondage Breaker (pg. 120)

The above quotes are from one of the most influential books I have ever read. The Bondage Breaker, written by Neil T. Anderson, proved to be the catalyst God used to answer my prayers for cleansing and renewal. He began to reveal truth about spiritual strongholds that were eating me from the inside out. Every area of my life was being affected by SIN. Yes, these were sins I had committed in life. But they weren’t necessarily all sins that I had committed, but rather sins that had been committed over or upon me throughout my life. I was carrying around bitterness and unforgiveness toward things people had done with good or bad intentions that hurt me.

In Revelation 12:10, it tells us that Satan is the accuser of the brethren. It’s amazing how I was allowing myself to be accused when I was really a victorious Child of the Living God. “We have all heard his lying, hateful voice in our hearts and consciences. He never seems to let up on us. Many Christians are perpetually discouraged and defeated because they believe his persistent lies about them. And those who give in to his accusations end up being robbed of the freedom that God intends His people to enjoy (pg. 152).” “But Satan is not your judge; he is merely your accuser. Yet if you listen to him and believe him, you will begin to live out these accusations as if they were a sentence you must serve (pg. 154).” Satan used very familiar voices to accuse me, and I just laid there and took it. My own voice was the most frequent; always in first person singular so I thought it was my own. He even used the voices of those I loved the most (mostly voices of times when I was hurt by something as a child).

After reading The Bondage Breaker, I learned some vital lessons on what forgiveness is and what it isn’t. I have posted them below so you can chew on them as well. I began the road to recovery over bitterness and the spirit of unforgiveness. My testimony is this: I was the person Neil Anderson describes in the top quotation, living a less than a fruitful and abundant life yet so desiring the fullness of Christ. After this journey of allowing Christ into the inner parts of my heart, which was often times painful and humbling, He delivered me so far from those thoughts. I don’t even remember what they were without going back and reading the journals I kept during that time. Not only were the thoughts gone, but even the very remembrance of them was gone. Now that is FREEDOM!! So is the power of the blood of Christ!! If you find yourself relating to the description Neil gives above, please prayerfully read the lessons on forgiveness written below. For more information on deliveranve from irrational thoughts, negative feelings and habitual sins, pick up a copy of The Bondage Breaker at your local bookstore. You'll be glad you did.

“Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful! Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.” Colossians 3:15-16

1. Forgiveness is not forgetting:
People who want to forget all that was done to them will find they cannot do it. Don’t put off forgiving those who have hurt you, hoping the pain will one day go away. Once you choose to forgive someone, THEN Christ can come and begin to heal you of your hurts. But the healing cannot begin until you first forgive.
2. Forgiveness is a choice, a decision of the will:
Since God requires you to forgive, it is something you can do. Sometimes it is very hard because we want revenge for the things we have suffered. But we are told by God not to take our own revenge. Let God deal with the person. As long as you don’t forgive that person, you will remain hooked to them and they will have power over you. You will remain chained to your past and bound up in bitterness. When you forgive, you let them off your hook, but they remain on God’s hook. God will deal with them in His time. Jesus knows how much that person hurt you and He will help you forgive them.
3. Forgive others for your sake so you can be free:
Forgiveness is mainly a matter of obedience to God. God wants you to be free; there is no other way.
4. Forgiveness is agreeing to live with the consequences of another person’s sin:
You are going to live with those consequences anyway whether you like it or not, so the only choice you have is whether you will do so in the bondage of bitterness or in the freedom of forgiveness. No one truly forgives without accepting and suffering the pain of another person’s sin. That can seem unfair and you may wonder where the justice is in it, but justice is found at the cross, which makes forgiveness legally and morally right. Jesus took the “eternal” consequences of sin. We only have to suffer the “temporary” consequences of their sin.
5. Do not wait for the other person to ask for forgiveness:
Remember, Jesus did not wait for those who were crucifying Him to apologize before He forgave them. Even while they jeered and mocked him, He prayed for their forgiveness.
6. Forgive from your heart:
Allow God to bring to the surface the painful emotions you feel towards those who’ve hurt you. Let God bring them to the surface so He can heal them and complete the forgiveness.
7. Forgiveness is choosing not to hold someone’s sin against him/her any more:
It is common for bitter people to bring up past issues over and over to them who have hurt them. This doesn’t mean you have to put up with the future sins of others. You can take a stand against them.
8. Don’t wait until you feel like forgiving:
You will never get there. Make the hard choice to forgive even if you don’t feel like it. Once you choose to forgive, Satan will have lost his power over you in that area! Then God’s healing touch will be free to move. Freedom is what you will gain right now, not necessarily an immediate change in feelings.

“Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” Eph. 4:31-32

Prayer Activity:
Pray this: “Dear heavenly Father, I thank you for the riches of your kindness, forbearance, and patience toward me, knowing that your kindness has led me to repentance. I confess that I have not shown that same kindness and patience toward those who have hurt me. Instead, I have held onto my anger, bitterness and resentment toward them. Please bring to my mind all the people I need to forgive in order that I may do so now. In Jesus’ name, amen.”

Do this: write down any names that come to mind through the Holy Spirit.

Pray this for each person: “Lord, I choose to forgive _________ for __________ because it made me feel __________.” Lord, I choose not to hold onto my resentment. I thank You for setting me free from the bondage of bitterness. I relinquish my right to seek revenge and ask you to heal my damaged emotions. I now ask You to bless those who have hurt me. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.”

Yours-

Dacian Keaton