The Power
of Forgiveness
By Dr. James
MacDonald
“Let all
bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put
away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one
another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, [just] as God
in Christ forgave you.”
Ephesians 4:31-32
There
isn’t one person reading this who hasn’t been hurt by
another person. Question: what are you doing with that
offense? Do you hold them hostage for the injury they
inflicted on you? How many hours and days have you wasted
thinking, You owe me
and I’m going to make you pay ?
That’s a
tough question on a painful topic but you have to get it
settled. In order to navigate your way through
relationships, you need to hold a conviction about how
you’re going to respond when someone hurts you.
Ephesians
4:31-32 gives us direction:
“Let all
bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put
away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one
another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, [just] as God
in Christ forgave you.”
Read that
last phrase again,
“just as God in Christ
forgave you.”
Just as
freely as
He forgave you.
Just as
quickly as
He forgave you.
Just as
generously
as He forgave you.
Jesus
models what forgiveness should look like in our lives. He
was falsely accused, mocked, beaten, and spat upon, then
crucified. As He hung on that cross for your sins and mine,
He said: “ Father,
forgive them .” Jesus’ model motivates us to
live out Ephesians 4:32,
“Just as God in Christ has
forgiven you.”
You’ve
heard me say it before: there are no enduring relationships
without forgiveness. None. Before you go very far in any
partnership, there will be forks in the road where if you do
not forgive, the relationship will not survive. It’s true in
every
marriage, in every
household, in every
small group, in every
friendship. This is always,
always true.
You know
that Kathy and I are committed to serving in one church for
a lifetime. As I’m preaching, I look into the faces of
people I’ve known for a long time. I know that I would not
have that relationship today were it not for their
willingness to forgive me and my willingness to forgive
them. Forgiveness says, “
Because of Christ, you owe me nothing.”
I love
this true account from the life of Leonardo DaVinci. Not
only was he a great painter, but DaVinci had a great faith
in God. On the day he was to begin to paint the masterpiece,
“The Last Supper,” he had a blow-out argument with one of
his friends.
As he was
painting the disciples seated around the table, DaVinci was
still sour toward his friend. So when it came time to paint
Judas-you guessed it-he painted his friend’s face. Then he
moved on to paint Jesus. Of course Leonardo loved Christ but
try as he might, he couldn’t paint His likeness in any way
that he thought represented His beauty. He painted, erased,
painted, erased. Convicted by his own unforgiveness, he
repainted the face of Judas with some other, random likeness
and went to get right with his friend. Only then could he
return to finish his portrait of Christ.
It’s been
said that DaVinci’s face of Christ in this work is one of
the most beautiful ones ever painted. What a great picture
of the mercy in forgiveness. It will bear itself out in your
life and mine. We will not see the likeness of Christ
reproduced in our lives until we forgive.
Has the
Lord brought a relationship to mind that needs your
long-overdue forgiveness? By faith say,
“Because of Christ, you
owe me nothing.”
Take to
heart God’s call on your life:
Let all
bitterness and wrath and anger and evil speaking be put away
from you, with all malice. And be kind one to another,
tender-hearted, forgiving one another,
even
as God in Christ has forgiven you
.
Who You Are In
The Spirit
By Andrew Wommack
If I were to ask you, "Do you know who you are?" your
immediate answer would be, "Of course I do." But can you
imagine what it would be like if suddenly you lost all
memory of your name, where you lived, who was your husband
or wife, your children, where you worked, etc. It would be
terrifying. There is an enormous security in knowing who you
are. That is the reason people are so reluctant to change.
They are secure in what they know, and very fearful about
what they do not know.
Well, it is also a necessity that you know who you have
become in your spirit. You are a new creature in your spirit
(2 Corinthians 5:17) and you have to reeducate your mind to think
that way before the perfect will of God will be made
manifest in your flesh (Romans12:1-2). We are more than
conquerors through Christ, but we won't benefit from that
truth until we convince ourselves of it, no more than a
millionaire would benefit from his bank account if he didn't
know it was there. This is the condition that the body of
Christ has been in. We have simply been ignorant of who we
are in Jesus (in our spirits) and of the rights and
privileges that are ours.
An example of this in the natural is our freedom as
Americans. According to the preamble of the Constitution, we
have been endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable
rights which are guaranteed to us by the governing documents
of the United States of America. There is an elected
judicial system to enforce these rights. But, with these
rights there are also responsibilities. It is each
individual's responsibility to know what his rights are and
go through the proper channels to obtain them. Millions of
law-breakers have never been brought to trial because the
victim, for one reason or another, didn't press charges. In
many cases, I'm sure the people didn't know their rights.
During Abraham Lincoln's presidency, he signed the
Emancipation Proclamation, which freed all American slaves.
But there are documented cases where slave owners hid the
Proclamation, and slaves continued serving in bondage
because they were ignorant of the change that had taken
place. This has been exactly Satan's strategy against the
church. As Hosea 4:6 says, "My people are destroyed for lack
of knowledge," and 2 Peter 1:3, "According as his divine
power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life
and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called
us to glory and virtue." If Satan can keep a Christian
ignorant or in unbelief about who he has become and his
rights as a child of the King, he can keep him in bondage
even though the law of liberty in Christ Jesus has been put
into effect!
The most effective way the devil has done this is through
religious unbelief, specifically the doctrinal teachings
about us being unworthy, condemned ol' sinners, saved by
grace. Praise God. I was an ol' sinner, but I got saved by
grace and now I'm the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus
(2 Corinthians 5:21). I am not unworthy any longer in my spiritual
man. Ephesians 4:24 says, "And that ye put on the new man
[that is speaking of your born-again spirit], which after
God is created in righteousness and true holiness." My
spirit is righteous and truly holy! Hallelujah!
But, somebody would say, "all our righteousness is as filthy
rags" (Isaiah 64:6), and "there is none righteous, no not one"
(Romans 3:10). These scriptures refer to our
self-righteousness which can never bring us into fellowship
with God because "all sinned and come short of the glory of
God" (Rom. 3:23). But Jesus took our sin and became sin for
us so that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him
(2 Corinthians 5:21). That means in our new spirits. That's the
part of us that is in Him. If you accept the first part of
this verse, that Jesus became sin for us, then you have to
accept the next part, that we received His righteousness.
This is not a righteousness which is imparted in heaven. It
will be perfected in heaven, spirit, soul, and glorified
body. But as Ephesians 4:24 says, our spirits are now
righteous and truly holy. Hebrews 13:23 says, speaking of
the church, "the spirits of just men made perfect."
The Spirit which we had that was dead unto God, is gone and
the new spirit which we received at salvation is righteous,
truly holy, and perfect. It is actually the same spirit that
we will have throughout all eternity. It will not be changed
or improved upon. The flesh part will be changed, but our
spirit salvation is complete. Colossians 1:12 says that we
have (past tense) been made meet (fit or able) to partake of
the inheritance of the saints. In our spirits we are now
overcomers, and the rest of the Christian life, stated very
simply, is renewing the soul and body to that truth. Romans
12:2 says it this way, "And be not conformed to this world:
but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye
may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect,
will of God." Paul didn't pray that they would receive some
new thing from God, but rather that they would renew their
minds and prove (or make manifest to the physical senses)
what was already there. God did not change us only in
principle at the new birth, but we are now in our spirits, a
totally new creation. But until we first realize this and
then act on it in faith, the devil will continue to oppress
us. The first step in faith is knowledge. Romans 10:14 says,
"How shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard?"
and verse 17 says, "So then faith cometh by hearing, and
hearing by the Word of God." Ignorance of who we are in our
spirits has made it impossible for us to act in faith
accordingly. Philemon 6 says, "that the communication of thy
faith may become effectual by the acknowledging of every
good thing which is in you in Christ Jesus." This verse
makes it clear that your faith becomes effectual (starts
working) by knowing the good things in your spirit. You
could turn that verse around and not change the meaning by
saying that if you don't know what's taken place in your
spirit man, your faith won't work.
The religious teaching that most people have received today
has either taught, or left the impression that there isn't
any good thing in us. We've been taught that the way to
activate the power of God in our lives is to keep our
unworthiness and weaknesses continually before us. This is
characterized by what I call the "false humility attitude"
among many Christians. You will hear statements such as,
"Without Jesus, I can do nothing," which is totally true,
but it is not balanced by the truth that, "I can do all
things through Christ which strengtheneth me." We need to
realize that we are totally dependent on Jesus, but we have
to go beyond that and realize that as we depend on Jesus, we
are totally superior to any weapon the devil can use against
us. We are world overcomers (1 John. 5:4). Hebrews 12:2 says
we have to look unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our
faith, but most of us have been looking at ourselves. No
wonder we've been weary and have fainted in the battle (Heb.
12:3)! As we change our attention from our own frailty to
Christ's sufficiency and take our place in Him, our faith
will be activated and we'll begin to live like the King's
kids that we are.
|