Forgiveness – Pastor Dave

I was listening to a young man share his testimony. As I listened, the Lord impressed me again about the power of forgiveness.
Mark 11:22 – 26 is very clear that unforgiveness can become a mountain in our life that hinders our spiritual life. Jesus states in verse 24 that “what we desire, when we pray, believe that we receive them and we shall have them.” There is only one problem in some of the teaching that I’ve heard. If we discount verses 25 & 26 we miss the whole point of what Jesus is saying. That is, if we don’t forgive, then we can’t be forgiven.
In Matthew 18, Peter asks Jesus, “How many times do I have to forgive? Seven times?” (Because Jewish law gave Peter the right of retribution often someone had trespasses seven times.) Jesus responds quickly and declares, “Not seven times but seventy times seven.” In other words four hundred and ninety times. Jesus is really saying to stop counting. Because as long as you are counting, you really haven’t forgiven.
This is not an easy thing to do. Forgiveness is not an emotion, it’s a choice a choice that releases us from captivity and brings freedom in our life. Forgiveness causes the “mountains” (or obstacles) in the way of progress and success in our life to be resolved. When we forgive we release God to deal with the person that offended us. Let me remind you that we can not stop offenses from happening in our life. But we can make the decision to forgive and not allow those offenses to control us. Jesus gives an outline in Matthew 18 for dealing with offenses. However, it seems that in the church we’d rather talk to other people about how someone offended us, our unforgiveness and our bitterness than to deal with it.
Many years ago I learned a principle that I call, The Principle of the Last Encounter. If we have a falling out with someone, we only remember that person in the context of the offense. However, years pass and we see that person and only remember the conflict. We may forget that over the years, the other person has changed and we hopefully have changed. It’s important to remember that in the context of relationships offenses and unforgiveness.
Be quick to forgive and I know God’s blessings will be released.

Pastor Dave