Thoughts on Unforgiveness: Part 4 of 8

The question that I started with was, “To what means do we/can we serve God when we hold on to the sin of unforgiveness in our heart?”

In turn I asked the second question, “In the light of all that Christ has done for us, what is it that holds us back from forgiving?”

Too often we get caught up in the dark side of sin and its appeal. When we choose to hold on to sin for a time it separates us from the love of God and exposes us to the wiles of the Devil. The scriptures tell us in I Peter 5:8, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:” We have been warned that the Devil was out to trick and trap us but we in our sin of unforgiveness send out a beacon in his direction. Our unforgiving spirit attracts him much like the shark is drawn to blood. He devours our joy and love for God by helping us to wallow in our desire and to hold onto that which we should not. Much like a drowning man holding on to his prize possessions refusing to let go and grab a life preserver he slowly sinks into the darkness. The prize possession causes us to sink further and further into sin and away from the blessings of God.

This may sound like a story from the Twilight Zone but it is really based on a text taken straight from scripture. II 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; (11) Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices.” By choosing to not forgive someone we have take our eyes off of the Lord and allowed Satan a foothold. Our sin of unforgiveness has given Satan the advantage and he will run with it. We have fallen asleep and let the enemy into our camp. Our desire to hold onto that which we should not has allowed him to slip in and we held the door open for him. Through his subtlety he soon has us turn that sin into an idol that blocks our view of God. Forgiveness is a choice; it is a choice that we must make and that choice must be based on obedience to God.

In the above passage as in other Scriptures we are commanded to forgive and when we do so we are to forgive completely. If we do not then we have not forgiven them at all (we will talk about that later.) For now we need to realize that God had instructs us to forgive and the best way to do so is to pray for them. In praying for others, you free yourself from potential bondage from the sin of unforgiveness. I know that Jesus knows exactly what He wants you to pray for when it comes to those you might have anything against.

The reason we must forgive and forgive others “completely” is because there is a possibility that we will still hold on with out forgiving so that we can hold them hostage at a later time. This is true of so many people who will say “I will forgive them but I won’t forget it or them.” This is sin because they haven’t forgiven them in the first place, they must forgive them completely. People who do so are blinded by Satan, and they allow him the power to torment them because they have chosen to sin. He will do what he can to keep them in chains and hold them hostage because of sin.

If we have unforgiveness in our heart Satan does get the advantage in and over our heart. Luke 6:45, “A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh.” If this is true, how long can we keep this sin private? No, that is one thing that we know from scripture that we cannot do. “But if ye will not do so, behold, ye have sinned against the LORD: and be sure your sin will find you out.” (Numbers 32:23) How long dare we extend the gap between us and the grace and forgiveness of God? That is a question that we have to ask our selves. Each hour we linger we are move farther and farther from the closeness of the Saviour.

If left unchecked, your sin of unforgiveness will soon cause you to experience more of the darker side effects sin; if you do not deal with it you will experience other sins such as anger or bitterness. This is much like being caught in a vortex. You do not notice the swirling decent at first because it is at a slow rate. The motion of the swirling rapidly increases as re approach the center. The speed and rate of rotation of the sin vortex are greatest the further (or longer) you are in the grasp of sin. These others sins will manifest themselves when we get angry at those who are friends of those we have not forgiven. This happens when we see them or the person that we have not forgiven and the anger level rises and the occurrences are more frequent the further into the vortex of sin we travel. This is because of the association that one has with the other, and the deeper into cycle we are. They will start all over again and again because our thoughts of those we have not forgiven enter our mind and then the episode that led to the unforgiveness becomes vivid in our minds, and we re-live that over again. There is no hope; there is no peace because we are in sin. All of our relationships with any associated party will begin to decay because we do not let go and forgive.

To be continued: