I've Been Hurt So Badly. How Can I Ever Forgive?

              The first book I wrote is entitled “Seventy Times Seven”. The title comes from Matthew 18: 21-22 NIV: “Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?”

            Peter wanted a mathematical equation on how many times he should forgive someone who sinned against him. So, in essence Jesus says, “You want a mathematical equation, Peter, I’ll give you one – “Jesus replied, “Seven! Hardly. Try seventy times seven” (Matthew 18:22 MSG). In other words, Jesus was saying forgiveness is not keeping count on how often we are wronged.

          Today, I would like to look at a parable Jesus told about forgiveness. It’s found in Matthew 18:23-35. Jesus said the kingdom of Heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. A man who owed him 10,000 bags of gold was brought to him. The man was not able to pay and the king ordered that he, his wife, and his children be sold to repay the debt.

          The servant begged the king to be patient with him and give him time to pay off the debt. The master took pity on the servant, canceled the debt, and let the man go.

      But the man went out and found a fellow servant who owed him 100 silver coins. He grabbed the man and demanded that he pay back what he owed. The debtor begged the servant to be patient with him and said in time, he would pay back the money.

        The servant who had been forgiven the huge debt refused and had the man thrown into prison. When the other servants saw what happened, they went and told the king. The king called in the servant who refused to forgive and said the following: “...’You wicked servant...‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to.  Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.

          “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart” (Matthew 18:32-35 NIV).

            From this parable, we see forgiveness is very important to God. It is part of His heart. That is why He sent Jesus, so we can be forgiven from our sin and when we repent, adopted back into God’s family, a position we lost when Adam and Eve turned from God and invited Satan to be their lord.

            In Exodus 15:22-25 (TLB), we read the following: Then Moses led the people of Israel on from the Red Sea, and they moved out into the wilderness of Shur and were there three days without water. Arriving at Marah, they couldn’t drink the water because it was bitter (that is why the place was called Marah, meaning “bitter”).

             Then the people turned against Moses. “Must we die of thirst?” they demanded.
Moses pleaded with the Lord to help them, and the Lord showed him a tree to throw into the water, and the water became sweet.

           The tree made the bitter water sweet. Take your bitterness, hurt, anger, and the wounds of your soul to the foot of the cross. Apply the blood of Jesus to the sin and the dunamis power of the Holy Spirit to the wound in your soul made by the sin of offense. According to Thayer's Greek Lexicon, in addition to referring to strength, power, and ability, dunamis can also refer to “moral power and excellence of soul”. Allow Jesus to turn the bitter water inside you to sweet – to restore you to the place where your soul is not damaged and wounded, but is excellent.

         If we want to see the power of forgiveness, look at Jesus. We know that Satan is the prince of the power of the air. Ephesians 2:2 (TPT) says, “It wasn’t that long ago that you lived in the religion, customs, and values of this world, obeying the dark ruler of the earthly realm who fills the atmosphere with his authority, and works diligently in the hearts of those who are disobedient to the truth of God.”

         On the cross, Jesus cried out, “...Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing” (Luke 23:34 NOG). In John 19:30 (MSG), He said, “...“It’s done . . . complete.” Other translations say, “It is finished.”

         At the cross, Satan lost his position of control. The sun didn’t shine – Matthew 27:45 (TPT) says, “For three hours, beginning at noon, a sudden and unexpected darkness came over the earth.” At the cross, Satan lost control of the earth. After Jesus cried out, took his last breath, and gave up his spirit, the earth shook violently and the rocks were split apart.

       At the cross, Satan lost control of death. After Jesus cried out and took His last breath,  “...graves were opened. Then many of the holy ones who had died were brought back to life and came out of their graves...after Jesus’ resurrection, they were seen by many people walking in Jerusalem” (Matthew 27:52-53 TPT).

            Oh my friend, there is power in forgiveness. When you release forgiveness, it closes the door on Satan.

          Boiled down to its essence, whether we extend forgiveness or not, depends on how much we trust God. Will we allow Him to carry our sorrow, pain, and disappointment or insist on holding onto it ourselves? Will we continue to drink the poison of unforgiveness, hoping it will kill the person who wronged us? Do we have faith God will handle our case justly?

            The response of the disciples to the teaching of Jesus about forgiveness in Luke 17 was to ask Him to increase their faith. In order to live out His challenging call to forgive, they knew their faith needed to be strengthened. To forgive is a powerful act of faith.

            I would like to close this post with a prayer. It is a prayer of repentance and forgiveness. It is a prayer for healing. I encourage you to pray it out loud.

          Lord Jesus, today I purpose and I choose to forgive in my heart every single person who has ever been involved in my trauma, be it a loved one, a husband or wife, a family member, a friend, a boss, a person I work with, a pastor, a leader, someone at my church, a government official, no matter who it was, Lord, right now I forgive them in the specific memory of what they did and I repent for getting bitter. I release them and I cancel their debts to me.

           In the name of Jesus, I cancel all of satan’s authority over me in these memories, because they are forgiven and I command the anger, shame, and guilt in these memories to go.

          I want to be healed. I want to have breakthrough. So, I’m taking an intentional action, like Moses did when the bitter waters became sweet. He took that branch, the cross, and threw it into the water. I take the cross. I take the blood Jesus shed for me and I apply it to my bitter memories.

        I put it into my bitter soul to heal these waters, to make them clean, so rivers of living water can flow into my body, into my mind, into my emotions, into my business, into my marriage, into my family, into my ministry, into my finances, into my health, and I see LIFE, HEALING, and WHOLENESS, God’s Shalom peace, coming into every area I need it.

        I pray this prayer in the precious Name of Jesus, the Name that is above every hurt and trauma I have ever experienced. Amen”
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          Prayer adapted from Katie Souza, Katie Souza Ministries