Who do you need to forgive?

He who cannot forgive destroys the bridge over which he may one day need to pass’ says Larry Bielat. When you don’t forgive, you stand the risk of keeping yourself a prisoner. No revenge is as sweet as forgiveness. When you have been wronged, a poor memory is your best response. What really matters is what happens in us not to us. Genuine forgiveness goes a long way because it comes from the heart.

When we forgive, there is this inner peace we feel, the joy that fills our heart knowing that we have at last set our heart free from all hatred thereby setting it open it for Heavenly  blessings. Forgive your enemies, nothing annoys them more. Hate, bitterness and revenge only hinders us at operating at our full potential. It kills slowly, makes us to lose focus, and keep us from succeeding in life. Forgiveness must be immediate whether or not a person asks for it.

‘Every person should have a special cemetery lot in which to buy faults of friends and loved ones. To forgive is to set a prisoner free and to discover the prisoner was you’ (Anonymous)

‘Holding on to anger, resentment and hurt only gives you tense muscles, a headache and a sore jaw from clenching your teeth. Forgiveness gives you back the laughter and lightness in your life’ (John Lennon)

          When faced with the need to forgive and forget, never make the excuse, ‘but you don’t know what he or she did to me’. That may be true, but it’s important to know what unforgiveness will do to you. Unforgiveness does a great deal of damage to the vessel in which it is stored than the object in which it is poured. That is, the person who harbours resentment and hate suffers more than the person it is aimed at. This is true because I have been there. I know how it feels when you try to get even with someone who has offended you. Unforgiveness is a cancer; it continues to eat you up till it destroys your life totally. A brother told us in church of his experience with a young pretty lady during a deliverance session. She had this problem of always having sex with a particular man in her dream and no matter how powerful the deliverance performed on her was, the problem will not just go away. This went on for years but as fate would have it, she met this brother. He prayed with her and felt in his spirit that this lady was hiding something. He asked her and after much persuasion, the lady opened up to him a shocking and painful experience. The lady said, ‘I was raped by three of my brother’s friends when I was nine and since then, I hated them with passion. Though I see them in my neighbourhood every day and they often come around our house, I cannot bring myself to forgive them and I will never forgive them for what they did to me’. Hmm! This brother sigh and then told her the bitter truth; ‘You will not be delivered from this bondage, unless you bring yourself to genuinely forgive those guys’. This lady would not agree because she found it difficult to do that. Nothing changed even after the prayer with her until one day; she made up her mind to forgive. She called this brother and told her she was ready to forgive them genuinely. She did so after much crying and she was delivered. That night, she stopped having sex in her dream and that was the end of her ordeal. I was speechless when I heard this story, and I sighed and thought, ‘this is unbelievable!’

Yes it is unbelievable what forgiveness can do. You can imagine that all the lady needs to set herself free from the bondage she has suffered from for so many years was just to forgive her offenders. Incredible! Isn’t it? It wasn’t easy for her, but she had to. Why not begin to make some reflections, who do you need to forgive? Think about people that has offended you in the past. Who knows, forgiveness might be the only solution to whatever it is you are suffering from (spiritually, financially, physically and mentally). Some might have caused you a collateral damage that you haven’t yet recovered from. They may have hurt you so much that you can’t bring yourself to forgiving them; but you just have to forgive. Set yourself free. Unforgiveness is one of the things God despise the most and does not tolerate. No matter the excuse you give, if you die with unforgiveness in your heart, you will be condemn into the lake of hell, because unforgiveness is a sin. Tell me, who is at lost here, the person you resent so much is out there enjoying God’s grace and blessings having asked for God’s forgiveness and you are here, getting in your own way. Forgiveness saves the expense of anger, the high cost of hatred, and the waste of energy. Forgive anyone you need to forgive and set yourself free from unnecessary captivity. Only the brave knows how to forgive; it is the most refined and generous pitch of virtue, human nature can arrive at...........