There are certain things that seem to get in the way of answered prayer, healing, and deliverance on a regular basis. Believers, who are attending church and serving God, often wonder why God has not answered their sincere prayers or why nothing seems to be working out in their lives. Eventually, they begin to question God’s reliability, promise keeping, and faithfulness in those instances, but often the fault lies in the heart of the believer. The number one hindrance, that I see, to the move of God in the lives of believers is unforgiveness.
Jesus is very clear about this issue. “For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins” (Mt. 6:14-15). In the parable of the unmerciful servant (Mt.18:21-35), Jesus tells of a man whose master forgave his unpayable debt of ten thousand talents. The man immediately went out demanding payment from a few who owed him inconsequential amounts and when they couldn’t pay, he had them sent to a debtor’s prison. When the master heard about it, he withdrew his mercy and turned the unmerciful man over to the “tormentors.” Jesus finished the parable by saying, “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.”
Forgiveness is not optional if you want the blessings of the kingdom in your life. I was reading through Jonah and I thought how much we are often like the old prophet. You remember the story. God directed Jonah to go to Nineveh and declare that catastrophic judgment was on the way unless they repented. Nineveh was the capital of Assyria, a world power that had killed, brutalized, and deported thousands of Jews over a period of decades. In the mind of Jonah, no grace nor forgiveness was due the Assyrians. My guess is that Jonah felt as if God were being unrighteous and unjust in even considering delaying his judgment on that city – a day that Jonah had privately prayed for.
Rather than obeying God and being an instrument of God’s grace, Jonah ran as if he could hide from the Creator of heaven and earth. Many of us believe that those who have betrayed and wounded us should experience the wrath of God in their own lives. When we hear the command to forgive, we run away in our minds – we find other things to talk about, think about, and focus on. We find a dozen reasons why we should not forgive at that moment. Instead of instant obedience, we put if off – sometimes for decades.
After being cast overboard by a crew of pagan sailors out of Joppa, Jonah was swallowed by a fish prepared by God for that moment and after three days and nights he was vomited onto the shore. (The life of a prophet is not always glamorous.) In his refusal to forgive and express mercy toward Nineveh, Jonah had been turned over to a tormentor – in this case a great fish. Then the Lord commanded Jonah, a second time, to go preach repentance to Nineveh. This time, Jonah went.
Remarkably, Jonah’s less than half-hearted preaching did the trick. The entire city, from the King to the dogcatcher, repented in sackcloth and ashes. Jonah was furious. In his mind, God had no right and no business extending grace to these godless people. In fact, Jonah confessed that he had run away because he knew what would happen – God would withhold devastation.
The book ends with Jonah still pouting about God’s goodness. We are not told what happened to Jonah after that. What is clear is that God’s heart is to forgive whenever possible and he wants that to be our heart as well. Here is the key: we don’t forgive because those who have wronged us deserve it, but because Jesus deserves it. To refuse to do so leaves us in the hands of the tormentors.
Who or what are the tormentors? Sometimes, they are simply our own emotions. Anger, bitterness, blaming, revenge – all of these poison our own well, rob us of joy, increase our blood pressure, and spill over on the innocent who are then driven away by our harshness. Sometimes they are demonic spirits who gain access to us by our anger, resentment, and disobedience. “Do not let the sun go down on your anger and do not give the devil a foothold” (Eph.4:26-27).
Sometimes, we interpret Jesus as saying that we must forgive when those who have wronged us when they come crawling to us, pleading for our forgiveness. In our minds, if they don’t repent we don’t have to forgive. Jesus did not set that condition on our forgiveness. Again, we forgive because he forgave us. We forgive those who owe us debts because the master forgave us an unpayable debt.
On several occasions, we have labored to cast out a demon that will not budge until we discover that the person we are ministering to has not forgiven someone in his or her life. When they do forgive, the demon looses its place (his legal right to be there), and then comes out quickly. I believe this situation is repeated when some are not healed and when blessings never seem to find their way to a person or a family.
In those situations, God is not withholding – we are. I wonder if the command came to Jonah for his benefit more than for the benefit of the Assyrians. I imagine Jonah as an angry prophet, beaten down by the years, and bitter in spirit. Perhaps, his bitterness was toward the Assyrians and it was God’s grace that gave him a chance to be freed from that bitterness by seeing the citizens of Nineveh as frightened and broken people rather than just evil enemies. Jonah turned down that opportunity and at the end we see the sun setting on a prickly curmudgeon who is still mad at God rather than a man whose heart had been healed by grace.
Forgiveness is not optional, although reconciliation may be. When the people we have forgiven are still hurtful or dangerous we are not required to let them back into our lives. But forgiveness (releasing their wrongs to the judgment of God along with a decision to no longer make them pay for what they did) is an imperative in the Kingdom. Like Nineveh, they may eventually fall to the judgment of God because they will not repent or change, but it will be his action not yours.
Does it seem that something is blocking your blessings or binding your heart? Is there someone you have not forgiven? Maybe it is someone from so long ago that you rarely think about him or her and so assume you have forgiven that person. Like many things, you need to verbalize that forgiveness and ask God to bless them as he sees fit. Forgive them in the name of Jesus because of what he has freely forgiven in our lives. It is a freeing and healing experience – one that God wants you to have.
