Unforgiveness will poison your life

Unforgiveness is like drinking deadly poison and thinking the other person is going to die. We see this principle played out in Scripture when Peter asked Jesus how many times he had to forgive.

Jesus’ response was in a parable, which you can read about in Matthew 18:21-35. Here’s a summary: A servant owed his master 10,000 bags of gold. The master took pity on him, canceled his debt, and let him go free. However, the servant then choked a fellow servant who owed him 100 silver coins. Instead of showing mercy as his master had shown him, the servant threw his debtor in prison until he could pay him back. The master found out and asked the servant, “Shouldn’t you have mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?” The master then threw him in jail to be tortured until he could pay back all he owed. Jesus concluded the parable by saying, “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

This parable is stunning to me. Unforgiveness puts us in prison!

If we fail to understand how big our debt of sin was to God and what it meant for him to forgive it, we can fall into the trap of judging the much smaller wrongs of those around us. As we can see from the story, we are only hurting ourselves when we do that!

Five lies that will keep you trapped in unforgiveness:

I don’t believe that anyone wants to intentionally live enslaved to the shackles of unforgiveness that bring torment to their life. So why do some people live in a lifestyle of bitterness? These five lies are contributors to being imprisoned to offense:

Lie 1 – You believe that if you forgive them, you won’t receive justice for your pain.

Lie 2 – You think that your unforgiveness of someone else’s trespasses justifies your own bad behavior.

Lie 3 – You believe that if you forgive, you will have to trust the person who violated you.

Lie 4 – You are convinced that your feelings are your convictions.

Lie 5 – You are still in emotional pain from the person who wronged you, so you believe you can’t forgive until you have worked through all of your wounds.

Unforgiveness is like an octopus; it has many tentacles that seep into your soul and choke out your life. If you’re living in torment, then I’d like to propose that working through forgiveness will deliver you from bondage and free you to begin living in peace!

Contact us now for an appointment to lead you through this process.