Forgiveness: When the other person has died.

The story of Martie’s experience in dealing with unforgiveness towards her mother in law had the perfect ending. This is not always the case. Bitterness could have taken root so deeply on both sides that it almost seems impossible for reconciliation. Hopelessness and despair, which also lead to depression, can play havoc with the mind.

Control, domination and manipulation are other factors which cause great difficulty in dealing with the issue of unforgiveness. When faced with this kind of opposition the “victim” feels powerless and cannot see a way out. This is a terrible condition to be in.

Now I wish to say this. The Word of God is not a magical formula. It works as a whole. You cannot name it and claim it. By that I mean that there are those who latch on to one of the promises in God’s Word and keep on confessing it in the belief that it is going to produce the desired result. Or, they receive a “word” of prophecy and attempt to build their lives around it. Beware! The word can become and idol. See what the Lord says in Ezekiel 14:1 – 5. This can bring you to destruction in order that you may turn back to God, not His Word only.

Let me give you an example which fits in with our discussion of unforgiveness and bitterness. People get caught up in the teaching on prosperity and hear the preacher saying that you must believe the Word, stand on the Word, confess the Word and it will come to pass. Now there is nothing wrong with that except for one thing; the hearers of that word have not walked the same road as the speaker. He has most probably worked through the issues in his life. He has or is practicing forgiveness. He does not harbour any bitterness in his heart. He does not speak bad about other people and the most important thing; he is walking in God’s love and has a relationship with the Lord. And, all of this is only possible when one is filled with the Holy Spirit and living daily in His presence.

People will confess the scripture in Mark 11:22 – 24 where Jesus said “Have faith in God. I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours.” There are two immediate problems with this type of practice. The first being that they leave out verse 25 where Jesus says “And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.” This is paramount to having God’s Word produce fruit in your life. You see, without God’s forgiveness of your sins He does not even hear your prayer or confession. Isaiah 59:2 “But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear.” So unless you forgive others their sin against you God cannot and will not forgive your sin. Stalemate.

The other problem with this confessing, naming and claiming game is this. We need to be asking and believing in accordance with God’s will. 1 John 5:14 – 15 says “This is the confidence we have in approaching God; that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us – whatever we ask – we know that we have what we asked of Him.” Can you see the results of unforgiveness. If we ask of God with unforgiveness in our hearts He does not hear us, and we can claim whatever scriptures we please; it is not going to work. This is not some magical system for getting things from our heavenly Father. We are talking about real life issues here. In James 4:1– 3 the Word says “What causes quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don’t get it. You kill (hate) and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.” (Self-centered).

As a result of asking incorrectly, many people don’t receive and are then angry with God. How sad? Our Father takes great delight in blessing His children. Why do we play games with Him by trying to manipulate Him with His very own words? The scripture in James says that if we ask according to His will then we know that He hears us and will grant the request. It is God’s will that we forgive? Therefore if we ask Him to help us forgive someone, do you think He will? Sure, it’s His will. But if we are still harbouring bitterness or even hurt in our hearts when we ask then He will not answer. Your request should first be, “Father give me a love for so and so and take away these bad feelings and thoughts.” Matthew 5:48 says we are to love our enemies. It is in God’s will. Let’s move on to our topic of unforgiveness.

We are going to cover three situations that appear as though asking forgiveness just doesn’t work, or we don’t know how to deal with it when:

• the person who hurt us has died.
• the other party refuses to forgive, or says they forgive but do not seek reconciliation.
• the other party is under the control of a Jezebel spirit.

Someone who has offended you or whom you have offended has died and you know that you have not made right. What now? Must you continue to live with that guilt feeling? No; there is a way out! The situations are numerous but here are a few examples:

• between spouses who cheated on one another; tolerated but never forgiven, now one has died
• between parents and children; drugs, alcohol, pregnancy, wrong partner choices, divorce
• between business partners
• between bust-up lovers

These issues sometimes go way back into the past but were never dealt with. A mother feels remorse over the fact that her daughter has been killed in a car accident. She messed up when she found out that her daughter was pregnant, many years before, and dealt so badly with the issue that she turned her daughter against her. Now the daughter is gone. The mom is burdened with guilt because her pride kept her from humbly seeking forgiveness from her daughter. For “pregnant” read drugs, alcohol, wrong choice of partner or whatever. You get the picture. If only…

Every time you see him you boil with anger. He used you. You lived together; shared things; had good times; and then he left you for someone else. You both moved on. Both now happily married with families. But you never forgave; you harbour bitterness; still feel abused. Then you hear that he has died of a heart attack. What now? Maybe you say, “Good riddance.” But that is the bitterness reacting and the dangerous thing is that your feelings could be projected onto your husband. Well He is a Man, and maybe he will cheat on you? You start manipulating and trying to control his life. You become domineering and he begins withdrawing. Your marriage starts crumbling. Remember that all of this happens in the subconscious so chances are that you are not even aware of what is going on. All you see is your happy life going down the tube. You never dealt with the issue of forgiveness and now it has snowballed into a nightmare. I painted this scenario to show how unforgiveness can create further havoc in your life. If only…

You judged another person for something they had done. Your verdict; guilty! But you never had all the facts. You did not know that they were hurting at the time, and their actions seemed the only logical way out of their predicament. Never the less, you passed judgment. Now they have passed away. The scriptures say, “Do not judge and you will not be judged.” Now you are found guilty, you have been judged. Remember my first article on Unforgiveness? You are harbouring unforgiveness and are trapped in the prison of your mind. If only…

You can write your own scripts and the bottom line will always be unforgiveness, bitterness and the downward spiral into hopelessness and despair.

What can you do? You can go for counsel and take the tablets but deep inside you know that nothing has changed. You still battle against those feelings. The tablets help you to control your feelings but you are still trapped; in bondage to your thoughts and true feelings. This kind of counsel is humanistic and mind to mind, and the tablets only serve to suppress your emotions. No real, lasting solutions with this method.

Neither do traditional Christian counseling methods work. As illustrated above, you can confess the Word until you are blue in the face but nothing changes. By repeating that you have forgiven someone is not going to work because you are attempting to take a short cut and manipulate God into “doing it.” You need to understand that our battle is not against flesh and blood (people) but against spiritual forces that play havoc with the mind and emotions. See Ephesians 6:12 and

2 Corinthians 10:1 – 5.

Dear friend, you need to go to your Heavenly Father and ask Him for a revelation of His love and forgiveness. He will point you to the Cross on which your Saviour died. That Cross is an everlasting symbol of God’s love and forgiveness. God your Father loves you so much that He gave His only Son to die, shed His precious blood and so grant forgiveness for your sin. If you will only come to Him in an attitude of humility to genuinely seek Him, you will find your Heavenly Father waiting with outstretched arms, more than willing to receive you. This is His loving kindness demonstrated towards you.

You may have been told to repent of your sin of unforgiveness but you cannot. Repent means to turn 180 degrees from what you have been doing. Repent comes from two words; “pent” meaning top or pinnacle (penthouse) and “re” meaning to return. Adam and Eve lived on the pinnacle of God’s creation; innocent and guiltless. Then came the fall! Now the Word of God says that all men are to “repent” and return to that place of intimacy with their Creator. But we cannot repent in our own strength. The scripture says that it is God’s loving kindness that leads us to repentance.

God honours His Word and if you approach Him in this way you will be sure to find Him and experience His love. Now you can say words to this effect, “Father, I have sinned against you by not forgiving (name). I repent of that that sin and ask you to forgive me. Give me your love for (name) even though he/she is no longer with us. Help me to rid my mind of all the wrong thoughts and to replace them with good thoughts about (name). I confess that I can not do this in my own strength. I need you Father, and your love.”

Use your own words if you can. Don’t worry about perfect grammar. You don’t have to use any special “religious” language or terms. God is listening to your heart because that is where the issue lies. If you find yourself crying uncontrollably, don’t try to control it. Just let it flow because that is the Holy Spirit doing a cleansing work deep inside your being. Allow Him to finish this powerful work in you. Continue praying when you can. This process can take a while; do not be in a hurry. Hopefully you will be in a quiet place alone where you will not be disturbed.

Should you be disturbed, say by a crying baby, just maintain a quiet inner peace and continue talking to your Father and tend to your infant’s needs. Maybe just thank Him for what He is doing in you and express your love for Him. Do you know that you can talk to your Father from your heart, your spirit, no matter what you are doing? It is similar to the way in which you talk to yourself, only now you are not talking to your mind, you are talking to God!

If you are able to draw aside and find a quiet place to be alone and continue talking to your Father, you are in for a wonderful surprise. YOU WILL BEGIN TO HEAR HIM ANSWER YOU. Yes my friend your Heavenly Father seeks a relationship with you, and a relationship is a two way thing. All you need to do is talk to Him for a while and then be quiet. This is the difficult part because our minds are so busy. Get the car fixed, what to make for supper, return those missed phone calls; a hundred things flood your mind. Don’t fight it. Just keep focusing on your Father.

You will hear His beautiful words of love for you and His forgiveness. He will encourage you like no other person can. He really loves you. Forget about what you have been taught about this “god” waiting to punish you for your sins. That is utter twaddle. Your Father is first of all a God of love. God is Love. There is no punishment in this life; consequences yes; we all pay the price for disobedience. But with His forgiveness comes His mercy and His grace. GLORY! Once He has forgiven you He forgets your sin. Now He wants you to experience His Love for you. He desires to show you His will for your life. Embrace Him, thank Him, love Him and revel in His beautiful presence!

Let’s move on to that issue of unforgiveness. The person who caused the offence is gone and you are left with the consequences of that unforgiveness; bitterness, guilt and despair. You cannot change what happened but you can allow the Lord to change your heart; and He will.

I think that is enough for one article and so I will deal with the other two issues in subsequent articles. Please do not hesitate to contact me should you feel that you need more counsel. My desire is to see people made whole by the healing power of God’s infallible Word in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Bless you,

Jack Viljoen

jack@tcitfh.co.za

http://www.tcitfh.co.za

http://jackviljoensmessagebook.blogspot.com

Forgiveness

The church is a sad testimony to the world. There is so much that does not conform to the teachings of Jesus and the other New Testament writers. And, worst of all, the leaders of the numerous institutions are more interested in their reputations, membership numbers and finance than they are in the well being of “their flocks”. Their image in the media is of utmost importance.

Whilst the flock is struggling with all kinds of personal issues the leaders are preaching “well prepared” sermons that contain no life-changing message. Furthermore, when it comes to counseling they use methods from psychology studied during their “preparation for the ministry”. They counsel from the mind to the mind. But the issues of life are issues of the heart and hence are spiritual in essence. Therefore mans’ methods are absolutely powerless when it comes to life issues.

Why is it that in the church, the divorce statistics are higher than those in the world? Suicide, child abuse and poor, if not non-existent, inter-personal relationships are accepted as normal behaviour patterns. Is this the Kingdom of God that Jesus taught about? I think not.

Proverbs 4:23 tells us to guard our hearts, for the heart is the wellspring of life. In 1 Corinthians 2, Paul talks about two kinds of wisdom; human and spiritual. We know about the human kind of wisdom, but Paul says that if we do not have the Holy Spirit we cannot receive the wisdom that comes from God because it is spiritually discerned. And, only the Godly kind of wisdom has any power to bring change and healing to the human nature and emotions. The sad part in this situation is that the majority of the church institutions are founded upon humanistic principles which exclude the Holy Spirit, and are therefore powerless to help anyone.

This brings us to the subject of this article. Unforgiveness.

You have been hurt; maybe only once or perhaps many times. You have sworn never to forgive or you have tried to forgive but cannot. You can face the perpetrators and put up a brave front. But you are wearing a mask. You have to hide your true feelings because, usually those who have hurt you are close; like family members. Inside you there is turmoil. Peace evades you. Bitterness is beginning to take root. You secretly plot revenge but you just cannot bring yourself to do it. Or, maybe you have tried to, and now you feel worse than before. Never the less whatever happens you are slowly losing your grip on life. You are being consumed by all sorts of wrong thinking. At the slightest provocation, of whatever kind, you fly off the handle and then feel remorseful. What makes it worse is that you feel to apologise but cannot, and so you make excuses for your behaviour and pass the blame.

Your self image is taking a beating. To compensate you begin to act “strong” even though this is not in your nature. You begin to control and manipulate those around you in order to gain the upper hand and feel “good” about yourself. You are on a downward spiral of despair.

Listen to what Jesus has to say about forgiveness:

John 20:23 “If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.” The words “are not forgiven” are translated from the original as “holden” or “retained.” This is the same word used in Acts 2:24 where it says that death was not able to retain Jesus when God raised Him from the dead. A very powerful word; think about it.

In the Amplified Bible John 20:23 reads “if you forgive the sins of anyone they are forgiven: if you retain the sins of anyone they are retained.” Now Jesus was not giving us the authority or power to forgive sin: only God has that right. There is a far deeper problem facing us here. What Jesus was actually saying in this passage of scripture is this.

If someone sins against you, no matter what the sin, we are to forgive them. Did Jesus not also teach in Matthew 6 in the Lord’s prayer, that we are to forgive? Check verse 15 which comes after the Lord’s Prayer. Jesus said “But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.” Serious isn’t it? Many people sight Mark 11:22 – 24 as the great prayer of faith. But you never hear them quote verse 25 which is the key to unlocking that faith. Jesus said “And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive your sins.”

Are you starting to get the message? Can you see the absolute power and release there is in forgiveness? Now back to John 20:23. If you are walking in Unforgiveness towards anyone then you have placed yourself in the bondage of Unforgiveness. You have retained the consequence of unforgiven sin, which is sin. You must understand that Unforgiveness is a sin. God requires, even commands that we forgive others just as He forgives our sin. If we do not forgive others we are sinning against our heavenly Father. And, furthermore we are making a mockery of Jesus’ blood that was shed for the forgiveness of our sin. Some would say, “but I do Not sin.” Well the Word says that you are a liar. Read 1 John chapters 1 and 2.

The other party lives oblivious to your predicament. It is not their hurtful actions that are the cause of your situation. No! It is your Unforgiveness towards them. Allow me to recount a true story that I was part of, and the beautiful results that God brought into peoples lives.

I was a group leader on a course teaching telephone counseling. A very important part of this course was helping the trainees to achieve wholeness in their lives. You cannot counsel from a position of “hurt.” Now you cannot coerce people to reveal incidences that have caused hurt in their lives but under the guidance of the Holy Spirit they do open up.

There was a lady in my group (let us call her Martie) that, although she said there was nothing in her past that had caused her to walk in unforgiveness, one day just decided to quit the course. She said that she was not worthy to help others. Self pity and a poor self image were beginning to show. A warning light went on for me. I asked her if we could have a chat at the end of that Saturday’s session. Martie agreed.

Before we started talking I prayed and asked the Holy Spirit to lead us into truth. Well I had hardly finished praying when she started blurting out a whole lot of things concerning her mother in law. Martie was in her late fifties and had been married for more than thirty years. Apparently her mother in law did not like her and was always breaking her down. She was never good enough. Her cooking was openly criticised in front of the whole family. Her baking was so “bad” that it was not fit to be eaten. Her home was never neat enough. And so the criticism went on and on for more than thirty years.

Now that was all bad enough, but Martie started recording all these wrongs done to her. Yes, she kept a black book in which she had recorded the dates and the things had had been said about her. What is more she kept reading through these things to keep them fresh in her mind. She became in her mind what her mother in law thought of her; a failure. This was amplified by the fact that her mother in law had influenced her two sisters in law in the same way. She now had three people breaking her down. All these incidents were recorded in her little black book. This was another mistake. 1 Corinthians 13 says that love does not keep a record of wrong things done to us. This was only compounding the problem. Martie’s behaviour was outside of God’s law of love.

The Word of God says we are to love our enemies because love covers over a multitude of sins. The Word also says that no weapon used against us has any power to harm us when we walk in God’s love; and perfect love castes out fear. This poor woman lived in fear of the times when the families would get together.

Now I knew her husband and he had nothing but praise for his wife. Everything he had to say was nothing but praise for her, but she could not accept it. She was a failure in her own eyes.

But worst of all she had built up bitterness and resentment towards her mother in law and two sisters in law. Martie was trapped in that downward spiral.

By the time she had finished sharing all of this with me she was sobbing her heart out. I sensed that the Lord was busy doing something in her. I then shared John 20:23 with her and explained that the only way to be released from this situation was through forgiveness. But she had forgiven them she said. She had prayed and forgiven them. She had even written it all on a sheet of paper, handed it over to the Lord and then torn the paper up and thrown it away. Nothing changed.

There is a good reason why that never worked. It is simply that, it is not the way the Word says we are to deal with these matters. Jesus said, “If you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother, then come and offer your gift.” Matthew 5:23 – 24.

Then Jesus goes on to say in verses 25 – 26, “Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court. Do it while you are still with him on the way, or he may hand you over to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and you may be thrown into prison. I tell you the truth, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny.”

Now let us apply this to our real life story above. When we have anything like bitterness or unforgiveness in our hearts we cannot worship God. Worship is the gift of our lives that we offer to God. We first need to put those things right before we can truly worship in spirit and in truth and connect with our heavenly Father. Our wrong attitudes cause a separation between us and Him. Jesus instructs us “to go” and set things right. We are to take action and do something about it. If we do not go, then our adversary (Satan) hands us over to the judge (our minds and emotions), who hands us over to the officer (demon), who throws us into prison (the negative condition of our minds).

Can you see how we place ourselves in this prison? This “prison” is that hopeless state we find ourselves in and is brought upon by not setting things right as soon as they occur; things like harbouring grudges and bitterness. The “last penny” that we have to pay is the action that needs to be taken to set the issues right. That demon will continue to torment our minds with a negative bombardment of accusations until we have paid the price of seeking reconciliation; that price is humility.

You see, when Martie never attempted to set these issues with her mother in law right, her mind gave the demonic forces the power to torment her. That is why Jesus said that we are to settle matters “quickly.” Do not give the adversary the opportunity to mess with your mind. The scriptures say “do not let the sun go down on your anger: do not give the devil a foothold.”

But Martie was never taught how to deal with conflict situations. Now do you understand my opening statements concerning the condition of the so called church? Knowing all about the prophecies in the book of Revelation and how they relate to the book of Daniel will not help you one iota when you are facing issues in your life. Church leaders are too busy impressing their congregations with their “knowledge” and not teaching them about dealing with life issues. The congregations are caught up in pampering the pastor, molly coddling the minister and pleasing the priest. No one is really seeking God for His plan and purposes for His church.

Sorry, let me apologise for that statement about the leaders. They don’t know any better. That is what they are taught in their colleges and universities. They studied the letter of the law without the help of the Holy Spirit and the Bible says of itself that the letter kills but the Spirit gives life. It is only in the power and the presence of the Holy Spirit that lives are transformed, not in being bombarded with humanistic knowledge. They dissect the Word (the seed) until there is nothing left to plant in order to bring forth life. A seed must be planted whole to produce life.

Back to Martie’s story. She agreed to obey God’s Word no matter how difficult it would be. Martie’s mother in law and her two daughters lived very far away so it would not be practical for her to go and put things right. I suggested that she write letters in which she should ask forgiveness for harbouring a bad attitude towards them, without mentioning their offense.

This may seem strange to you as they were the ones who had sinned against her. Correct but, remember John 20:23, Martie had retained the consequence of unforgiveness towards them! She wrote the letters and to her amazement she received prompt replies by telephone. All three said no, they were to blame and asked her forgiveness. Much crying and reconciliation. God is faithful and as the scripture says, “He watches over his word to perform it.”

Martie was totally set free and went on to complete the course, and became an excellent telephone counselor. Guess what the problem was that her very first caller had? Right! Unforgiveness. Martie was able to counsel out of her very own life experience and God’s faithfulness. Bless the Lord. Glory.

If you are struggling in the same area then read the scriptures above and ask the Father to give you the grace to apply His word. James says that it is the doers of the Word that are blessed. Do it and watch the miracle that God our Heavenly Father will do in your situation.

I know that there are skeptics out there who would say “impossible, years of hurt just cannot be healed that fast.” They are right; when it comes to humanistic counsel and tablets. But when we trust in a miracle working God and the power of His Word the impossible becomes possible. Bless His Holy Name.

May the Lord bless you in your search for the Truth.

If you need help in this area please feel free to contact me; jack@tcitfh.co.za.

With love,

Jack Viljoen.

The Church in the Father’s Heart.

jack@tcitfh.co.za

http://www.tcitfh.co.za

P.S. Ephesians 4:32 – 5:1 and 2. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children, and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.