Week 4 – The Power of Forgiveness by Pastor Mark Cowart
Simply acknowledging truth does not make it part of your thinking. You must study and meditate on the Word of God to you. What you receive from God needs to be treasured and focused on until it gets inside of you. Like you studying this devotional right now. Keep at it!
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart Be acceptable in Your sight, O LORD, my strength and my Redeemer. Psalm 19:14 NKJV
Continuing in our study of forgiveness, we need to be fully aware of how costly it is to not forgive. The state of unforgiveness marks you in the realm of the spirit. It is an open door into your heart where much evil can enter. While what was done to you was itself evil and should have never happened, only forgiving will free you from severe ongoing effects.
I will not speak with you much longer, for the ruler of the world (Satan) is coming. And he has no claim on Me [no power over Me nor anything that he can use against Me]; John 14:30 AMP
Here the Lord Jesus is making it clear that the devil had no legal access to his life. He had plenty of opportunities to harbor offense as he walked this earth and encountered the religious leaders of the day who ultimately rejected and killed him, but He chose to continually forgive.
He came unto his own, and his own received him not. John 1:11 KJV
He wanted his disciples (and us) to know that his execution wasn’t happening because he had given ground to the enemy by refusing to forgive. This is critically important for you and I to understand. Even from the cross, His words were those of forgiveness and prayer for the enemies who had nailed him there.
Then Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.’ Luke 23:34 NKJV
At the same time, our Lord was enduring the rejection of His heavenly Father directed at our sins which He had taken on as the sacrificial Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Remember in the Garden of Gethsemane, He was looking for a way out of this assignment, as He considered the full scope of it.
He went a little farther and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, ‘O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.’ Matthew 26:39 NKJV
“Gethsemane” means oil press such as would have been used for extracting olive oil, a precious commodity in those times. The only way to get the oil out of the olive was to crush the flesh. We want the oil of the Holy Spirit in our lives, but first our flesh has to be subdued, even crucified. When it comes time to forgive someone, you may feel like you are being crucified, because your fleshly mind cannot comprehend the things of the spirit. It seems illogical, counterintuitive.
Therefore, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind, for he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh for the lusts of men, but for the will of God. I Peter 4:1-2 NKJV
What does it mean to “arm yourselves with the same mind”? For one thing, it is the will of God that we forgive. Always. It is for our protection that we have this commandment to forgive as we have been forgiven. As a believer, a follower of Christ, you have no excuse for refusing to forgive. You have everything you need to do it. You are a walking dynamo. There is power on the inside of you, but you have to put a demand on it.
…the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us. Romans 5:5 NKJV
We can program a thermostat to turn on the power to change the temperature in a room. Once the command is given to the system, it is as good as done. We decide when that happens, just as we can decide to forgive. You choose to forgive in a moment in time, which then puts the demand on the dynamo of God’s love in your spirit. You have inside of you the same love and faith that was inside Jesus when he hung on the cross. Think about that. Once you change your mind and choose to forgive from your heart, by a conscious, decisive act of your will, the dynamo turns on to change your circumstances.
Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. John 14:27 NKJV
In a story of a Jewish rabbi who saw his whole family killed in a Nazi concentration camp, he said he had chosen to forgive the perpetrators of those heinous crimes, “because I didn’t want to take Hitler to America with me”. He was definitely on to something. Unforgiveness creates unholy ties to the offenders you hold accused. As long as the offense is alive in your heart, you carry them with you, even after they are geographically distant or deceased. By yourself preserving this evil in your soul, you maintain a door, a legal right for the enemy to have access to you. Remember, Jesus said in the scripture above, “he (satan) has no claim on me [no power over me or anything he can use against me]”.
Our Lord walked in forgiveness. He did not allow corrupt religious and political leaders of his day to get to him. He continued to walk in the love of God and spoke the truth in love (sometimes it seemed harsh) all the time, despite the continuous attacks by his persecutors. By the Holy Spirit, we can often discern a person’s unforgiveness. When Simon the sorcerer in Samaria had believed and been baptized, he wanted then to buy the ability to impart the Holy Spirit by laying on of hands. Peter said this and more to this man who was obviously messed up by holding onto offenses.
For I see that you are poisoned by bitterness and captive to iniquity. Acts 8:23 BSB
Wow! Have you ever noticed how some people just seem attracted to trouble? Iniquity in the heart is like a magnet for evil. And, it blocks the flow of God’s love in your life.
And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. Matthew 24:12 KJV
Forgiveness breaks you loose from all of that stuff! There is no other way to get free from the assignments of the enemy against you in the spirit realm but to forgive. Here’s another reason to choose to forgive. What you fail to overcome, you pass on to your children. Generational curses you may not even know the origin of can be broken off by your faithful obedience and authority in Jesus Christ. You can say, “This stops with me.”
“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong”. –- Mahatma Gandhi
Deciding to pardon an offense can be perceived as weakness, but in reality it takes a strong person to forgive someone who has wronged them. That person will thereby choose to walk in light and love in spite of the pain they have endured. This too marks you in the spirit realm.
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
Pray this over your life:
Father, in the name of Jesus, I receive your discipline and correction in my life. Thank you Lord for breakthrough. Thank you Lord that I am no longer bound by unforgiveness. Thank you for empowering me through the Holy Spirit to identify any place where unforgiveness and bitterness would try to remain. Holy Spirit you are my faithful Helper as I respond to all that the Word of God illuminates in my life. Amen.
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