THE POWER OF FORGIVENESS

The matter of forgiveness has been on my mind. Just when I think I am done, God brings me right back to it. I am not thinking it, I am reading a book and it pops up; suddenly it has become a frequent topic on Daystar television which I watch often. Oh! How I wish the preachers could move on to something else but they don’t. I heard Pastor John Hagee say “when you forgive someone, you totally free yourself from the person’s power to control you.” Joyce Meyer says “un-forgiveness is like drinking poison and hoping someone else would die.” Ouch! That is tough. It is time to look through our lives again with a view to ensuring that we have not given too much control over our lives to anyone by not forgiving them.   

So, I am sharing my thoughts today just in case you need to learn something about forgiveness. Who knows, maybe God also wants you to let go of that root of bitterness. Guess what! There is no resurrection life without forgiveness. Un-forgiveness would make it impossible for the word of God to impact our lives and situations so that the life of God cannot be imparted. It creates “a disconnect” between us and the Spirit of God that can only be rebuilt if we forgive. 

Jesus was not exaggerating when He said if you bring a gift to the altar and realize that you have un-forgiveness in your heart, leave it there, go and sort things out before you return to give it. Obviously, un-forgiveness is so powerful that it affects our gifts and makes them unacceptable to God. I wonder - what then happens to all our seeds sown in un-forgiveness for which we are expecting a harvest? It is my humble submission that God did not breathe on the seeds. If it is true that God deals with us from the place of mercy even in blessing us, how shall we then receive anything from God whose mercy is shown to the merciful?

Life is tough, you would understand this statement if you live in Lagos, Nigeria, which is where I live. People get easily frustrated so that things that could easily be resolved become major issues because of frustration we face daily which all happen in quick succession. These things happen so fast that if we don’t learn to ‘let go in forgiveness’ our hearts become calloused making it impossible to receive from God. We then become cynical about everything and everyone.

Sometimes it feels good to indulge one’s self in un-forgiveness; especially when you know that people take you for granted because “they know you, you will forgive.” You just want to show them that you are not so foolish to always forgive but guess what! You have to be “so foolish.” That is why God is so interested in using the foolish so He makes them wise Himself. Forgiveness does not suggest that you don’t learn the lessons God may be teaching through the experience, if any, but forgiveness makes you see the experience in the light of the good things that came out of it.

Forgiveness does not come to man naturally. The seed is planted in us when Christ comes into us but we have to express it. It is not a feeling; it is an act of will. You choose to forgive. You do it over and over again until it becomes second nature to you. We have to be deliberate about learning to forgive. You can’t afford to let someone else interfere with your relationship with God.  Please let us all ask God for grace to forgive.