Forgiveness by Luke Ninan

Why is that Christians are under bondage and they can’t live a victorious life?

The primary reason for this is unforgiveness. Christians are bitter towards God and towards people. There is a saying that goes like this “Unforgiveness is like taking poison but expecting someone else to die”. And it is very true as unforgiveness is like dying everyday.

We can realise whether we are struggling with unforgiveness through the following symptoms.

• Insecurity
• Spiritual immaturity
• Painful memories
• Anger
• Hatred
• Self-pity
• Lying
• Negativity
• Ineffective prayer life
• Trust issues
• Pride

We harbour unforgiveness through critical thoughts and words. 80% of our thoughts are negative wherein we linger onto thoughts of injustice done to us by people. Only 20% of our thoughts are positive. Holy Spirit, the comforter brings in life giving positive thoughts but the accuser, Satan brings in hopeless and killing negative thoughts. Christians should be able to discern the accuser from the comforter.

The tree of bitterness is rooted in unforgiveness and bitterness which grow and produces resentment, murder, addictions, anger, alcoholism, accusations, witchcraft and sometimes also diseases like cancer, arthritis, gluttony, blindness, anorexia etc., This tree takes us way back to the past to Genesis to the two trees, The ‘Tree of life’ and the ‘Tree of knowledge of good and evil’. The Tree of life talks about God himself whereas Tree of knowledge of good and evil talks about our life independent of God. When we are born again and filled with Holy Spirit, the tree of life is put back in our hearts. If we eat of this tree daily we will not be accusers and the free flow of the Holy Spirit will help us to forgive our brethren irrespective of the situation. Sin came into this world when Adam chose to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. So if this tree is in our heart then, we will accuse our brethren because we are controlled by biggest accuser, Satan.  When we are hurt we have the choice to choose any one of the tree which further decides what comes out of us.

God’s word teaches us not to judge anybody because with the measure we judge others we are also judged. Our God is a just judge. Matthew 7:1-5, Luke 6:37-38 and Galatians 6:7-8 shows us the God’s law of judgement and law of sowing and reaping.

How to uproot the bitterness from our hearts?

• Forgive – We need to forgive to receive forgiveness from God (Matthew 6:14-15). We need to forgive because God forgave us (Colossians 3:13, Ephesians 4:31-32)
• Pray – We need to pray for those who wronged us as Jesus prayed on the cross. He acted in grace instead of justice. Stephen also prayed for his prosecutors. We need to pray for ourselves so that we will have a clean and pure heart and also so that we will resist Satan and not give him a foothold in our lives
• Do not take avenge – It is not for us to avenge because it is upto God to repay (Romans 12:19).

Forgiveness brings in blessings like healthier relationship between God and people, better mental and physical life, higher self-esteem and spirit filled life.

We have examples of people from the bible who practiced forgiveness.

• David – He obeyed God and trusted God in all of his circumstances. He forgave Saul even though his life was threatened by him. David showed grace in return for the evil things that Saul did to him.
• Joseph – He forgave his brothers for selling him as a slave. He was not bitter towards God also. He had to go through a pit situation, a slave situation and jail situation. Still he didn’t grew bitter towards but rather honored God wherever he was placed. Forgiveness was a daily affair for him.
• Jesus – Our saviour, forgave the people who crucified him, people who just needed his miracles and his disciples who abandoned him. He acted in grace and did not bring judgement on us

Forgiveness is not easy but with the help of Holy Spirit living inside of us, we can forgive. Forgiveness is unlocking the door to set someone free and realizing you were the prisoner.

Reflection by Susan Paul