Mistake: Unforgiveness
Unforgiveness indicates that you agree with the Law, not grace. You cannot receive healing through the Law – it is available only by grace! If you “have it out for someone,” your mentality is that the person should get what’s coming to him because of what he did. That is a Law mindset, not a grace mindset. Logically, if that person should get what’s coming for his sin, so should you! You can’t operate in a Law mindset and a grace mindset at the same time. You don’t want to try to operate under the wrong covenant! Moses brought the Law but Jesus brought grace and truth (John 1:17).
Jesus followed His instructions when He said to “believe that you receive when you pray” with a command to forgive anyone who’s done you dirty in any way. If you’re not walking in forgiveness, you’re not walking in the rules that Jesus Himself laid down for praying the prayer of faith. You don’t get God’s prayer results when you don’t follow God’s prayer rules.
Mark 11:24-26:
Therefore, I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.
And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought [anything] against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.
But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses.
(The last 2 verses above pose some difficulties that are addressed at length in the article What 1 John 1:9 Really Means.)
Forgiving others is a command, not an option. You must forgive everyone, no matter what others have done to you. There are no footnotes in any of these Scriptures that give you a way out if the injustice was bad enough, or if it was entirely the other person’s fault.
No offense is too great to forgive. As a born-again believer, you have the love of God in your heart (Romans 5:5). God’s love is willing to forgive all sins. If you will make a decision to forgive, the Holy Spirit and all of heaven will back you and help you. If you need help, ask for it and you’ll get it! You CAN forgive others and you have no excuse for not doing so.
Whatever wrong someone did to you, remember that Jesus shed His blood already so that the person could be forgiven for it. You have the mind of Christ, so as a believer, your attitude should be that you agree that you want to see the other person forgiven and free, not judged for his sin. Like Jesus, you choose not to hold that person’s sins against him. I can think of no faster way to grieve the Spirit of Grace than to refuse to operate in grace toward someone who wronged you. You place yourself in a position where the Holy Spirit cannot back your actions.
Remember that forgiveness is an act of your will, not an emotion. If you decide to forgive, your emotions will have to get in line eventually. Do not wait until you feel nice gushy feelings for the person who hurt you. You may never have those feelings! God did not command you to have nice gushy feelings; He commanded you to forgive. You don’t have to feel like being around the person in question in the future.
Forgiving someone for a painful incident doesn’t mean that you’ll have no memory of it anymore. It is not as simple as deleting a file on a computer. Your brain doesn’t work that way. However, when you forgive someone for doing something, the incident no longer affects your emotions.
You have not truly forgiven a person if:
– You want other people to know what that person did to you.
– You attempt to get other people to look down on that person and “take your side.”
– You want other people to feel sorry for you because of what that person did to you.
– You are still figuring out how to “get even” with that person.
– You rejoice when bad things happen to that person.
Holding onto bitterness is like allowing poison to stay in your body. You’re only hurting yourself, not the person who wronged you.
The main reason Jesus came was to purchase forgiveness for sinners. To refuse to forgive is to pit yourself against the very purpose for which He came.
I have seen dramatic examples of this in practice. So have other people with healing ministries.
A man who came to our church had severe back pain from a slipped disc. We laid hands on him and felt the anointing go into him, but no visible results were forthcoming. He ended up asking God what the issue was. God showed him that he was operating in unforgiveness toward a church that he used to attend. As soon as he CHOSE to forgive that church, his healing manifested instantly. He went and got X-rays showing that his disc was normal and almost all the arthritis he had also had disappeared at the same time.
Another woman who came to one of our healing events had been crippled for 28 years or so and had been on disability. She had to be helped into the room. She could not even pick up a pen with her hands. The doctors told her that there was no cure; she would soon be wheelchair-bound with untreatable pain and then die. It turned out that she had not forgiven her deceased mother. That night, she decided to forgive her mother. She was able to raise her hands over her head in front of us. The next day, she was out shoveling snow, and she was so excited that she could do it that she went to her neighbors and asked if she could shovel THEIR snow, too. She then went out and got three jobs and notified the government that she didn’t need disability checks anymore. (She wisely scaled back to one job later.) Imagine – all those years of agony were because she would not forgive her mother! Unforgiveness is never worth the steep price! Fortunately, even though her mother had passed on, her decision to forgive her still set her free. If you have held onto unforgiveness toward a now-deceased person, you can still be set free too.
You Are Already Forgiven for your Unforgiveness, But Unforgiveness Will Still Hurt You
If you get technical, unforgiveness IS a forgiven sin and it will not in and of itself stop you from being healed. You are still legally healed by Jesus’ stripes even if you are in unforgiveness. Surely there were people Jesus healed who hadn’t forgiven someone. Jesus did not require anyone to fill out a scroll certifying that he had forgiven everyone before He ministered healing.
You CAN reach out and receive healing even if you continue to smoke four packs a day. You CAN believe and receive healing for headaches even if you bash yourself on the head with a hammer three times a day. Healing is yours no matter what, but you make it hard to receive it if you keep engaging in behavior that results in sickness and pain. In fact, it’s hard enough that in practice, you may find that you aren’t in a decent position to receive what is legally yours by grace as long as you wallow in the sin of unforgiveness.
Being under grace doesn’t mean that unforgiveness is OK and that you can have a wonderful walk with the Lord while you poison yourself with unforgiveness. You won’t have a successful prayer life if you violate Jesus’ prayer rules! It will help you immensely to get out of the Law Zone and into the Grace Zone.
Unforgiveness Gives Satan an Advantage over You
Something that gives Satan an advantage over you would certainly seem to be something that could hinder your healing. The Bible is clear that unforgiveness cedes an advantage to Satan.
2 Corinthians 2:10-11:
To whom ye forgive any thing, I forgive also: for if I forgave any thing, to whom I forgave it, for your sakes forgave I it in the person of Christ;
Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices.
Unforgiveness will cost you. Get rid of it now!