FORGIVENESS

14/9/2010

Over the years I have struggled with forgiveness. Some of the things that have happened to me and have been done to me are horrific. Bitterness and negativity took over my life, contaminating everyone around me. What they did to me, what they stole from me and the damage they did. Try as I might I couldn't get free. I tried going to them and sorting it out. They would say I had the problem and that they didn't. Even an apology or admittance of guilt would ease the pain.

My life is in tatters. Relationships broken down. Low self-esteem. No confidence. A loss in the sense of His anointing and presence. A sense of betrayal, isolation and powerlessness had overcome me. I knew I was better than this. I know that isn't the real me. Everyone around me relates to me as if I were someone else.

I hit rock bottom last month. Blaming everyone and everything that had brought me to this place. I cried out to God, saying "This is all too much for me. I am trying my best and it's not good enough. I miss Your anointing. I can no longer sense the mantle on my shoulders but I know You are calling me back to some kind of ministry." "What are You doing in me?" "It would have been better had I not been born or saved if I were to see those things of God and taste of His glory and wield His mighty power and then lose it all." "Why call me and gift me if it is going to end this way, destitute and divorced again."

God spoke to me and said that nothing that happens can separate me from His love. He said that He knew what He was doing and that He has not changed His mind. He said that sin is what separates me from Him. I said "but what have I done wrong that I hadn't acknowledged, confessed and repented of?"

He showed me that NO ONE can take away my confidence in Him except me. My faith has been tried and has come up wanting. When those people said and did those things I must have believed it. Some part of me accepted the package of lies that was put on me. I allowed myself to let go of those precious gems He had given me.

Did those people take away my faith? Well, they don't seem to have it. Can they give it back? Not likely. Why am I looking to them then? I let it go. They don't have it. Did they take away my joy? Same. Did they take my peace? No. In "Boundaries" by Cloud, et al, they say that if we are not forgiving someone it is because we want something from them. When I look to those people to give back what I think they stole from me it is ridiculous. They haven't got it. I still do. The gifts and callings of God are without repentance. GOD WILL NOT TAKE THEM BACK. THEY ARE NOT TRANSFERRABLE (although some aspects can be imparted to someone else).

I have not lost any of those things but they are sitting there for me to take up again whenever I am ready. When I am prepared to face the brutal fact that I am the one who stopped walking in Him when I put responsibility for the state of my heart onto someone else I will be able to do something about it. This is my life. I have power over what I believe. I have power over what I allow in my heart and in my mind. I HAVE SINNED by abdicating, by believing lies about me and about God. I have lived by excuses and blaming others for my responses to their terrible deeds.

So I took my life back. It was always mine. No one can take away that relationship I have with Him, only me. I miss God and I miss the real me. No more excuses. No more blame. Jesus said that persecution would come. He said that we would be attacked, killed and rejected. These things happen. Whether it be the devil, a heathen, the government, the church or even those who have care over our souls and have breached our trust, it doesn't matter. It comes down to what I allow to reside in my heart. No one can make me be or do anything that I don't want to be or do.

I called out to God to forgive me for trading in His joy for anger, forgive me for trading in praise and thanks to Him in all things for judgement and unforgiveness. Forgive me for trading in Your faith for fear and negativity. I did those things. I repent. Forgive me.

It is a daily walk. Sometimes it is still hard to deal with what has happened but I refuse to throw my life away by giving power over me to others. It is my life, not theirs. I am a man of God and what that means is that I am His, first and foremost. I keep my heart for Him. If I am deceived - so what? If I have a devil - so what ? "Let everything within me praise the LORD". I choose to live for Him. I have to work with what I have and I am not expected to know everything. I don't really care what those people said or did any more. God will deal with them as He has in me. "He doesn't want any to perish but that all would come to the knowledge of the truth." The truth is that the kingdom of God is within me and that has to do with me and Him - no one else. NO more excuses.

Forgiving those people is easy now. I have received forgiveness for throwing away my confidence and God is restoring it. What He does with them is His concern. I am part of the answer, no longer part of the problem.

The key is in working with the things that are our responsibility and not taking on those that are not. I acknowledge that my pain, my damage, the state of my soul are my responsibility, no one else's. I take full blame for where I am at. I take back my power. I have full control over my heart. I am free. "And you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free." " If a man's heart condemns him not then he has confidence with God". I can come boldly into the presence of God because I am a sinner who has been and continues to be forgiven. When I fail to identify my sin or if I make it someone else's or if I say it is not sin then I can not apply the power of the cross to it and be free.

"He who the Son sets free is free indeed".

Now when something happens to me I still feel the hurt, that is natural and normal, but I turn to God and ask for healing and I forgive the other party and focus on what it is in me that allowed me to be harmed. "The god of this world comes but he has nothing in me". When those things happen I now ask myself "what is it in me that allowed that result?" "Have I allowed my fears or a lie about me to lodge in my heart?"

I know who I am. He and I are inseparable and I allow His word to search my heart and "see if there is any wicked way in me". All is laid bare. I have nothing to prove except that His love for us is greater than any other thing and that if He is for me then who can be against me?

Pastor Garth Clarkson