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But they are guilty!
I can’t let them off the hook.
I understand. We’ve all been there.
As long as we live on this planet we will be frequently hurt and offended.
But what do we do with this rapidly accumulating pile of offenses and the growing list of people we avoid?
This week I asked Kathy to do the blog since she teaches Forgiveness at our Transformation Seminars.
Forgiveness does not come naturally or easily to humans. In fact we find it very awkward, uncomfortable and difficult. It totally goes against our nature.
Most of us would rather avoid the subject completely.
In this week’s video Kathy explains the power of forgiveness to change your life.
Find out what forgiveness is and what it isn’t. Learn the difference between forgiveness and reconciliation.
Just click on the video and walk through the gateway to freedom.
To live a transformed life you have to choose to forgive.
Now I want to hear from you
What benefits have you had in your life because you were able to forgive? Just leave your comments in the box below.
Would you like to learn how to forgive?
Are you tired of being chained to past hurts?
How can you forgive people who are clearly guilty and unrepentant?
Get all the answers and join Kathy in prayers of forgiveness in her DVD/CD Forgiveness, the gateway to freedom.
Would you like to meet with me personally to discuss areas in your life where you feel stuck?
I am now able to take a very limited number of online or phone appointments. If you want help living a transformed life, just click here for more information.
Iâll talk to you next week,
Grant
Come and join our online community on my Facebook page.
Comments 29
Choosing to forgive feels like a refreshing swim in a clean mountain lake..You feel more alive and totally cleansed when you wash away your anger and disappointment by forgiving those who have hurt you. Great job, Kathy!
Kathy, you hit on some very good points about both forgiveness and unforgiveness.
When I can truly ‘let go and let God’ be the judge, it feels so light! Then something happens to remind me of the offense and I find myself right back in anger, resentment and accompanying unforgiveness. I know that as I get stronger in taking captive my thoughts, the enemy will become less able to stir me up again.
Thanks for a reminder!
Kathy, thank you for your recent blog on Forgiveness.
As informative and motivational as it is, it has been and remains one of todays toughest struggles for me. Just as I or someone else may be feeling better about our inner thoughts of forgiveness with somone, there is the presence of a repeated act or assault. Presuming we are able to differentiate between unintentional and intentional assaults, should we be treating forgiveness to either scenario equally? Having some difficulty with forgiveness when we find ourselves trying to reconcile with repetitive challenges and differences.
Forgiveness as the great girt through Christ we can now open up for ourselves and others. A gift we give ourselves, you said. I was reminded how godly sorrow leads to salvation and deliverance. Forgiveness brings salvation and deliverance from great pains and struggle when we carry the burdens of hurt and woudedness in relationships.
I appreciated that you separated forgiveness from being able to safely be in relationship with someone. For many years that truth eluded me. This release in forgiveness of hurts and wrongs frees up a more creative capacity to relate wisely, and when need be to detach in love. Holy Spirit reveals a deeper connection to our Father through forgiveness, where the care we extend to others is the very life and love we are experiencing He is extending to us.
It would be fun and potentially enlightening to see the two of you Christian thespians play out some of the ruts even we as Christians get stuck in in this area. The consequences of unforgiveness and the bitter roots you mentioned truly choke off the fruit our father intends.
Thank you for your faithfulness to serve up a good meal of tasty , godly truth.
Isn’t it true that a lot of times when someone rejects or says something to hurt you they have acted that way because they are hurting themselves. They have there own problems and hurts.
Is it not true when people reject or hurt yoou it is because they themselves have problems and inner pain too/
Now you can not say this is not a God thing; just before opening this email, I had just sent my ex a response to the preservation of spousal support. I explained it is about letting to, about the negativity and how much I have grown spiritually in these few past months. I like the word toxic because that was how are relationship was, very toxic. No matter how much I wanted to change myself , he pulled me down, down in to a situation of near death by suicide.Wow, the work that I have done for myself.
I am so grateful for the grace that has been given towards me. I am so grateful that I have developed a relationship my God and that I am able to see things through a different lens.
I am so grateful that I can see I do have value, I am worthy, and I have so much more to enjoy.
What a great joy to be where I am today.
Hi it’s Kathy here. Thanks for all your responses to the blog today.
Forgiveness is such a big issue that when we are able to forgive it does feel like we’ve had a complete bath.
Being able to take control of your thoughts will go a long way to not revisiting the offense, and remembering to continue to choose to forgive helps that.
When you are in a situation where offense continues to happen as Rod mentioned it becomes very important to establish boundaries so it becomes a more manageable issue. Regardless of whether the offense is intentional or unintentional we are still told to forgive, otherwise we are standing in place of the judge. That is a very difficult thing to do.
Yes Susan people do hurt us out of their own wounding and we need to be careful we don’t rationalize away our own feelings but recognize the effect they have had on us and still choose to forgive.
As for David’s suggestion of more drama on the blog, we’ll have to think about that.
Kathy
Kathy, thank you for that talk on forgiveness, I had a great struggle a few years ago when I had to move to another church which the “Umbrella ” of that church, the Main group has churchs all over the world. I was having a struggle, as we had to move to a Council flat which I had to redecorate, I had to look for a job which I had difficulty finding before plus family problems, when I joined the other church in Forest Row , I did not feel comfortable, so I left , and went back to my old church with my sister for a visit and was rejected, this affected me badly and I went into deeper depression, but I chose to forgive, it took a long time, and asked the Lord to help me. I have forgiven them and am at another church which is under the same “Umbrella” I feel so much happier, in between I all this I could not go to church for a while, then joined a Methodist church but for a long time it did not feel right, In coming to this church New Life the ex Pastor of the one I left in Forest Row is there, but when explaining to him and his wife that I had gone through depression he was and has been a great blessing, even though he is not a Pastor there but has a senior position . I hope I have explained this complicated situation well enough for you to understand.
In my wilderness I am still have to ask my silent God to help me with any issues I may have.
Thank you Kathy and Grant as it is hard sometimes to forgive but we do need to.
With Blessings Gayle
To forgive is to give up the right to get back at the person who hurt you. It is ok to express your hurt and anger to God and not feel like forgiving the person, but to have a desire to come to that place of forgiveness knowing that you cannot do it alone but call upon God to change your heart. This was my situation when I discovered that my father had sexually abused me. I was extremely angry and hurt.
I felt like I wanted to stick a knife in him but I knew I needed to forgive him in my head but my heart was not ready and I told the Lord this.I wanted to be in that place of forgiveness but it did not seem possible to me then. It took a long time to process the hurt and anger continually bringing it to God and three years later I was able to be at his beside as he died of Cancer seeing to his needs with a heart of compassion. Forgiving him set me FREE.
Barbara, that’s a very powerful testimony. Thanks for sharing it with us. You have sure demonstrated the power of forgiveness with God’s help.
Grant
Hope Grant is okay, seemed like he was having eye troubles last time. Could have been the bright lights.
Thanks Allen for asking. I’m good. Yes it was the lights last time. I was cameraman this time. Kathy told me what to do.
When my mother passed away and I was going through some of her things I found a paper with “Holding resentment against someone who hurt you allows them to live rent free in your head.” Forgiveness breaks that hold the situation has on you and you can move forward in a greater peace because you are free from it. I pray that it will become as easy to practice this as it is to say it. God bless.
Great analogy. Thanks Ethel.
Someone described forgiveness as “sending away the offense.” This removes the difficulty of trying to forgive a person whom you’ve become emotionally tied to in a negative way. Just send away the offense, and the negative emotional tie goes with it.This may sound flippant but I’ve found it very helpful.
Bang on job Kathy!! Thank you for (daring it and) going on video for us! Your message on forgiveness…so aptly presented! I am going to pass this page on to my husband…you expressed so well what I have been trying to explain to him about how/why I can just “let it go”. I’ve been described as hard, naive, and living in a dream-world when I shake my head, and (choose to) just walk away. and maybe at some level it is out of selfishness…but in the end, it keeps me sane. To forgive IS a wonderful gift that God has given us the free will to choose. And it is what I do and will continue to choose. Thank you again Kathy!
Thanks Gloria. Glad you found it so helpful.
Kathy
This is very on time for me.For the past week it seems that everywhere I turn or every book I read, even when speaking to a friend, this topic of forgiveness has been coming up and I know in my heart that the Holy Spirit is prompting me to forgive certain people in my lives who are very toxic, they’re unsaved and probably don’t even realize how much I have been hurt by them.
I have had to forgive both parents for a lot of childhood issues; my past has been very abusive and dysfunctional and the Lord has done a tremendous amount of emotional healing in my life and I’m so thankful for that.I’m able to communicate with both parents today and have compassion while setting healthy boundaries so that I don’t feel trampled upon by them as before. I had to get christian counseling, like Kathy mentioned, to help me sort out the hatred and root of bitterness that was in me.Thank you Kathy for this video which I’m sure I’ll be replaying until I get it in my spirit how important it is to sincerely forgive from the heart.God Bless..
Thanks Glory. I’m glad you went for help and was then able to forgive and set yourself free. Thanks for sharing your story with us.
Kathy
Yes. Forgiveness is difficult, even if, comparatively one has not suffered all that much. But it is a choice, and if Jesus said it. you’ve got to do it.
Asking the Lord to help me forgive someone and not to hold unto an offense is my first course of action.Afterwards I have to bring the hurt and anger back to the Lord and sometimes I struggle in this area.I know the other person is hurting from something but I do feel weary at times because it is not an instant fix especially when people are trying to bring friendship back together and I don’t trust the person.
FORGIVENESS
I didn’t want to call him
His words had hurt me so
But the gentle Spirit’s prompting
Was telling me –
That’s just what I should do.
“Forgive him?” I questioned
“After what he said and did”
I had treated him with with kindness
and received
That hurtful blow in reply.
I tried so hard to bury it
To keep it under wraps
But every time I heard his name
It was there – – –
To haunt my thoughts.
Dear Lord, I need your help
This is beyond my lowly strength
My carnal nature raises up
And leads me —
Where I really should not go.
Give me your strength, dear Lord
And words of yours to speak
So I can face this situation
In a way – – –
My Lord, that pleases you.
Me
This is a poem that the Lord gave me one time when
I was having problems with Forgiveness.
I take it out quite often and repeat it to myself and
to my Lord. It is helpful to remember that when we
forgive it does please the Lord.
Thanks Ethel for the poem. What a great description of the need to forgive.
When I am praying through the Generational Curses in an RTF session, I select the specific strongholds that have kept the person bound. I look them in the eye and forgive them, for example, “Joe, I forgive you for being arrested, for stealing, lying, doing drugs, I forgive you in the Blood of Jesus. Time after time, the client states how powerful that is for someone to forgive them ‘with skin on’. They have been going through the steps, and receiving forgiveness from someone else enables them to truly forgive others and themselves.
“Forgiveness with skin on.”
What a great concept and practice. Thanks for sharing it.
We had a young pastor one time who always said “Part of our job as Christians is to be Jesus with skin on” What a lovely example of this Sally had. Thanks to her this has been brought back to my memory.
This message got buried in my email inbox and I didn’t watch it until now, but I just wanted to comment on how forgiveness has changed my life and my relationships with a few people. I read a book a while ago that talked about the importance and power of forgiveness, and it really inspired me to forgive the people in my life, for things that maybe before I didn’t even realize needed forgiving. One example was my brother, with whom I didn’t get along with very well when we were younger, I think our personalities were too similar or something, but we just clashed and both of us are the type to just push back harder the more we are pushed, so we ended up hurting each other a lot. I reached the point where, since I knew any interaction with him would be negative, I just stopped interacting with him at all, which was better than having negative encounters with each other. He seemed to come to the same conclusion. We spoke to each other only out of necessity, and couldn’t seem to say anything to each other that wasn’t sarcastic, negative or tinged with bitterness. I am so thankful that reading that book opened my eyes to my need to forgive – to forgive my brother for the hurt he had inflicted on me, and also to repent of the hurt I had caused him, and forgive myself for what I had done. Then I was able to receive God’s forgiveness, and it absolutely transformed me and my relationship with my brother. I was amazed to find that all my bitterness and dislike towards him was just gone, and I was able to talk to him and treat him with love and respect, without even trying! It was so obviously God who orchestrated this, because I know I couldn’t done this out of my own strength. I had to ask God to work the forgiveness in me, because I couldn’t make it happen on my own. I still need to go to my brother and apologize and ask for his forgiveness, and I hope he can have the same healing and freedom that I have experienced. The same thing has happened in other relationships, after forgiving them for everything they’ve ever done to hurt me, whether intentional or unintentional, whether even perceived by me or not, just choosing to forgive everything has resulted in a complete absence of bitterness and negative emotions towards them, and I can actually feel genuine love for them. It is tremendously freeing and defies human understanding. It still needs to be worked at, because of course people are human and make mistakes, but having already experienced the incredible power of forgiveness, it is so much easier now to forgive, just let it go and leave it to God.
Thanks Amy. That’s a powerful testimony.