So I was doing a little work on the blog, finishing up some stuff my most recent employer asked, and dry on inspiration.
My friend said, please do the post on forgiveness I asked you to do. I said, okay here goes.
So my friend’s wife is dying. Furthermore she is dying due to someone’s malice. There is nothing that can be done now; she is dying and this cannot be reversed. They don’t know how long.
He recently came to Jesus, and it was very much troubling his newfound relationship with Him, trying to come to terms with the guy responsible.
“For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.” ~ Matthew 6:14-15.
He knew he had to forgive this guy or risk his salvation. But it is his WIFE. All the years he will spend alone instead of having her with him. That is hard to forgive indeed.
Maverick, I said, you need to forgive this guy because he is not worth your time. He is not worth a single tear or the slightest stain on your soul.
He is not worth the smallest pain. The slightest suffering. He is not worth jeopardizing your relationship with Jesus or missing out on blessings.
You need to forgive him because forgiveness is the Lord’s great soul cleanse. By forgiving him you can get rid of the bad feelings, the anger, let the Lord heal the harm done.
Forgive him not because he deserves it. Because YOU deserve it.
Forgive him. Give the Lord all the bad feelings, the anger, the hatred, the rage, the pain, everything in your heart. Ask Him to remove it all. Let Him take it all, then ask Him to cleanse the wounds with His precious Blood and the water of the Word, and apply the soothing balm of grace.
Forgive, then ask the Lord to fill all the places where the anger and horror was with His Love, peace, grace and Holy Spirit. Ask the Lord to fill all the empty spaces with Himself.
Cancel the debts, cancel all of the debts. Give those debts to the Lord to be the debt collector. Let the Lord handle all that.
“Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is Mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord.” ~ Romans 12:19.
“It is Mine to avenge; I will repay. In due time their foot will slip; their day of disaster is near and their doom rushes upon them.” ~ Deuteronomy 32:35.
I said, the Lord will do far more to this guy than you EVER would have, as angry as you are. The Lord will be far meaner; His judgment and wrath will exceed anything you would have thought of doing.
Then Maverick, who has spiritual sight, this is what he experienced when he did all this.
First of all, all the crap came out of his heart when he forgave the guy and gave it to Jesus. Black stuff in various forms; this is pretty typically what the junk the Lord gets out of your heart looks like.
Second, the spiritual equivalent of invoices appeared when he canceled the debts and gave them to the Lord to collect. These appeared in the form of scrolls with red seals. There was one unusual contract: a blood debt which was very distinctive in appearance.
These were then given to a knight in red armor riding a red horse, who then rode off to collect them.
Maverick said the Lord gave him much light into what was happening with this guy and all that was his: now, future, and what would happen in eternity. It will not bring his wife back when she dies, or give him back those years they could have had together.
But this guy, having rejected Jesus Christ in a definitive way, will now owe every penny of those debts and all the others being laid at his door. No one to pay them; he will have to pay them all himself.
You cannot evade debt collectors from Heaven or Divine Justice. Maverick is obviously sad about his wife, but his soul is satisfied with the Lord’s justice.
“Don’t they know anything,
all these impostors?
Don’t they know
they can’t get away with this,
Treating people like a fast-food meal
over which they’re too busy to pray?
“Night is coming for them, and nightmare—
a nightmare they’ll never wake up from.
God will make hash of these squatters,
send them packing for good.” ~ Psalm 53:4-5, The Message.
Furthermore his soul is at peace. Obviously he is sad and grieving the upcoming loss, but his soul is at peace and rest, since he got rid of all that harm by forgiving the guy involved and giving all the bad stuff to the Lord.
He felt so good he started forgiving lots of other people too, recognizing forgiveness was for him and the Lord would avenge him or had avenged him against all who had harmed him in his life.
As a result of this, he has a great deal of peace and joy in spite of this difficult trial, and as I helped him see this he really wanted me to share. He says he wouldn’t have been able to forgive this guy any other way.
But now that he understands why and what forgiveness does for him, and that the Lord will avenge him above and beyond all he could ask or think, he feels free and happy, and his soul is satisfied.
I can attest I have seen in real life some of the terrible consequences that happened to some of my abusers and how the Lord brought them very low. I tell people what the Lord did and what I saw to encourage them He really does avenge the oppressed, that there are real life consequences for sin.
It is unlikely the people who hurt you deserve forgiveness. Maybe they repented and do. Many many times, though, especially with abuse you will never hear an apology. I never did. My abusers totally stand by their abuse actually.
I could carry that around but why? I have seen what the Lord did to them. They aren’t worth a single bad feeling or tear. I abundantly forgive all who have harmed me. May the Lord deal with them all as He sees fit.
In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
Jephthah's Daughter 