At the heart of every issue is a heart issue. This is especially true when it comes to Christ-Followers seemingly not living in a way that is contagious and lacks a supernatural joy. I am becoming more and more convinced that what prohibits Christians from experiencing more of Jesus Christ is a refusal to forgive others.
Jesus' most famous sermon, the Sermon on the Mount (Matt.5-7), follows a pattern of tracing an external action back to an internal root. It is not a coincident that Jesus first addressed the heart issue of unforgiveness. But, the question is, why is unforgiveness such a major deterrent to God moving in my life? Simply put, my unforgiveness of another person is a spiritual cancer, that when metastasizes, ravages me in three critical areas:
1) Consumes my joy
2) Pollutes the lenses through which I see everything around me
3) Rejects my new identity in Christ
CONSUMES MY JOY:
Living in joy is a choice. The book of Philippians is only 4 chapters long, yet uses the word "joy" or "rejoice" 16 times...all in the context of its author, Paul, being imprisoned: less than "joyful" circumstances. This runs counter to the notion that my joy is directly tied to my circumstances...it is not. Joy is a choice that I make that, many times, is inconsistent with what is going on around me. It is important to understand the root of joy, because if I refuse to forgive someone over something that was said about me or done to me, then that unforgiveness will focus me on that particular situation/person and not on the joy that I can choose for that day.
POLLUTES THE LENSES THROUGH WHICH I SEE EVERYTHING AROUND ME:
We all come at and see life through different vantage points. Many times, these vantage points, or perspectives, are different pieces of a much larger whole. The four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) are four different vantage points from four different men...all different testimonies to varying degrees, yet all correct. Refusing to forgive another person has a strange, yet deadly, way of polluting the way I see and view everything around me through the lenses of negativity, cynicism, and criticalness. When God is at work around me and lives are be changed, renewed, and transformed, if I harbor unforgiveness, I will either not see God at work around me or I will explain the "God-movings" away by declaring them simply emotional-based and question their legitimacy and their longevity...but never will I be cognizant of, much less thankful for, God moving all around me.
REJECTS MY NEW IDENTITY IN CHRIST:
I am exactly who God declares me to be. This means that I am not my past. I am not my mistakes. I am not even my reputation. I am exactly who God declares me to be...the chief among my new identifiers are: new creation and forgiven. When I refuse to forgive someone (even over something that was said/done against me) I refuse to do for another person what Jesus Christ willingly did for me. Many of us have massive emotion scars with even deeper emotional wounds...all because someone did something unbelievably horrible to us. And because of these past wounds and scars, we begin to define ourselves not as over-comers (as God defines us), but as a victim, as damaged, and as broken. There is a direct correlation between how we see ourselves and how we see God moving in and through us. For example, if I see myself as someone who can never be used by God to do great things for Him...guess what? I'm right (although this has nothing to do with God's lack of ability, but rather my lack of faith in Him)! But if I see myself as someone that has been changed by God into a new creation that expects God to do great things in me so that I can do great things on behalf of Him...guess what? I'm right (although this has nothing to do with my abilities, but rather my dependence on the truthfulness of God's Word)!
If you're reading this post and have had something traumatic done against you by another person, you are probably saying something to the effect of, "Ben, you have no idea what they did to me! They don't deserve forgiveness!" You know what? I don't know what has been done to you...and they probably don't deserve forgiveness. But let's put everything out on the table. Forgiving someone is not you saying what they did was alright, okay, or justified. Forgiving someone is surrendering your preconceived right to take vengeance upon that person; and instead, handing that job over to God. God is just and He will not allow wrong to go unpunished. Here's another amazing thing about forgiveness: it's not about the other person, it's about you! When you harbor unforgiveness, you don't punish the other person...you punish you. But when you forgive someone else, you don't so much set them free...you mostly set yourself free!
Please understand that God will not work in your life if you have unforgiveness in your life. I don't know about you, but I desperately need God to work in and through me! So who do you need to have a tough conversation with? I'll tell you, it's not the easiest thing in the world...but I promise you, that will be the most beneficial thing you can do in your life as God seeks to continually blow your mind with all that He has in store for you!
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