Love Keeps No Record Of Wrongs (part 2) by Keona J Tann

In my previous devotion I shared that when we repent and ask for forgiveness God wipes the slate clean and remembers our sin no more, for God’s love keeps NO record of wrongs! You can read the full devotion here. I pray that you can grasp hold of the fact that Father God’s heart is full of mercy, grace and unending love for you!

Once we understand that the price is paid for our sins and we can embrace the FULL and complete forgiveness that God offers us, we can also extend that very same FULL and complete forgiveness towards others. Because Jesus paid in full the mistakes of others!

To keep no record of wrongs is revealing that we carry Father God’s heart, a heart that is full of mercy, grace and unending love for others.

 Jesus understands

I can’t begin to imagine how hard or seemingly impossible forgiving others may be for you and I’m not going to pretend that I can, BUT Jesus does. In fact He FULLY and completely understands our weaknesses:

“Jesus understands every weakness of ours, because he was tempted in every way that we are. But he did not sin! So whenever we are in need, we should come bravely before the throne of our merciful God. There we will be treated with undeserved kindness, and we will find help.” Hebrews 4:15-16 (CEV)

Human nature is to harbour hurts and we are tempted to retaliate with revenge. Jesus understands this and desperately wants to help us.

Prayer and forgiveness

In Mark 11 Jesus teaches about prayer and forgiveness:

“For this reason I am telling you, whatever things you ask for in prayer [in accordance with God’s will], believe [with confident trust] that you have received them, and they will be given to you. ²⁵ Whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him [drop the issue, let it go], so that your Father who is in heaven will also forgive you your transgressions and wrongdoings [against Him and others]. ²⁶ [But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father in heaven forgive your transgressions.]” Mark 11:24-26 AMP

This is pretty huge stuff!

Jesus teaches us that when we pray and ask for things, that are in accordance to God’s will, that it will be given to us. That’s truly wonderful but then we get to the ‘fine print’ and maybe the bit we’d all like to leave off: when we pray we are to forgive others, drop the issue and let it go, in order for God to forgive us.

Ouch, did that hurt you as much as it did me?

But remember Jesus deeply understands because He prayed those powerful words….

Father, forgive them

But let’s go back a bit before those words… Jesus was betrayed by someone He had invested His life into; He was denied three times by His closest friend; and then endured mocking and torture which led to His eventual death, this was all done by those He had come to save. But as the nails held Him to the cross, the crown of thorns bit into His skull, the deep wounds on His body poured out His precious blood, He forced His struggling lungs to fill with breath so that He could utter the words:

“Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.” Luke 23:34 (NLT)

WOW!

Dave Earley¹ explains the moment so brilliantly:

“..in the midst of the betrayal, denial, and desertion; despite the brutality, lies and injustice; and in the middle of the murderous mayhem; Jesus said three of the most powerful words ever spoken.

“Father, forgive them.”

Jesus’ prayer of forgiveness has continued to echo throughout the centuries, as those of every tribe, tongue and nation have experienced the cleansing joy of having their sins washed white as snow and cast into the depths of the darkest sea.

When Jesus prayed, “Father forgive them,” He set us free from the prison of our sin. When we pray, “Father forgive them,” we set ourselves free from the prison of bitterness.

There is only one way out of the horrible prison of harboured hurts.

There is only one key that turns the lock of freedom from the jail cell of resentment.

It is the prayer Jesus prayed two thousand years ago, “Father forgive them.”

Praying this prayer is not optional for a healthy Christian – it is mandatory. As long as we live on earth, we will be hurt and offended by other people. We must learn to liberate them and set ourselves free in the process.

Lack of forgiveness is devastatingly powerful. It produces the awful fruit of resentment, bitterness, anger, hatred, strife, and jealousy. Lack of forgiveness rips apart families, divides marriages, splits churches, and poisons friendships.”

Dave Earley’s words certainly throw us a huge challenge.

Deeply Personal

This issue is deeply personal for me. At the start of 2015 I was battling with extreme fatigue which left me unable to work and as a result I lost my job. I had never been fired before and I found getting fired, especially for something I couldn’t control, so unfair. I was deeply hurt. But I didn’t realise how hurt I was until one day. I was in the car park near my old workplace, going around the turning circle, when I saw one of the people who had fired me. My hurt surfaced in the most horrible way. As I turned my car towards that person, I envisioned myself speeding up and watching that person tumble in the air. My wounded heart leapt with the joy of revenge as I imagined that person wounded and hurt beside my car. WHAT! My mind screamed. I took a steadying breath, closed my eyes so that I could no longer see that person and prayed for God to help me. I drove home in a bit of a daze and crawled into bed. I was shaken to my very core. I’m not the kind of person who wants to run someone over, I especially didn’t think I’d ever want to take delight in it. That day I really understood how devastatingly powerful unforgiveness is.

Thanks be to God for stopping me that day from acting out my revengeful thoughts. As I’ve allowed God to help me unpack that day and teach me to forgive a great freedom has come into my life. As I pressed in for a new heart I found forgiveness flowed easily.

A new heart

As Dave Earley explained harbouring unforgiveness leaves our hearts full of resentment, bitterness, anger, hatred, strife, and jealousy. As I shared with you my unforgiveness buried its way into my heart and came forth with thoughts of potentially deadly revenge. Which is why Jesus taught so much around this issue, in Matthew 6:12 He urges us to ask for forgiveness and extend forgiveness others: “and forgive us our sins as we have forgiven those who sin against us.” Matthew 6:12 (NLT)

The key phrase here that stood out to me was “as we HAVE forgiven” not as we will but as we have, a past tense meaning that we already have. That’s why we need to have a new heart, one that is full of mercy, grace and unending love. We require a heart that is eager to ready and quickly forgive.

A heart that doesn’t latch onto hurt but quickly releases it to Jesus.

Forgiving is hard and there is no denying it. But the really wonderful thing is that we don’t have to extend forgiveness in our own strength because we can ask for help. The Holy Spirit is our Helper which means that He longs to assist us with this struggle.

Let go of the emotions

The Amplified version of Matthew 6 urges us to fully let go of the emotions attached to the hurt we’ve endured; we are to let go of both the wrong and the resentment because nurturing our hurt and anger interferes with our relationship with God.

In Luke 17 we read about Jesus once again teaching on forgiveness and stating that even if someone sins against us seven times a day and returns seven times to say: ‘I repent’, then our response must be to forgive. That sound like a pretty tough situation to be in and the disciples felt the same way because their response was:

“Increase our faith [our ability to confidently trust in God and in His power].” Luke 17:4-5 AMP

The disciples knew that they couldn’t extend forgiveness without the assistance of God. Jesus’ response to their request for more faith leads into another teaching moment. Jon W. Quinn explains that Jesus then “illustrated the power of faith by pointing out a mulberry tree (or sycamine tree in KJV) in the vicinity and telling the apostles that with the proper faith they could tell it to go plant itself in the sea and it would do so.”²

It’s really interesting why Jesus referred to this particular tree because Rick Renner³ explains it has “one of the deepest root structures of all trees in the Middle East” making it “very difficult to eradicate.”

Rick states that the reason Jesus used this tree is because “The roots of bitterness and unforgiveness go down deep into the human soul, fed by any offense that lies hidden in the soil of the heart.” The other thing Rick notes is that these trees grow very quickly just like bitterness and unforgiveness which readily spoils the conditions of our hearts and ruins our relationships. Then going on to warn us that permitting bitterness and unforgiveness to grow in our lives will kill our joy, steal our peace and cancel out our spiritual life.

Which is why Paul urges us to:

“Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor [perpetual animosity, resentment, strife, fault-finding] and slander be put away from you, along with every kind of malice [all spitefulness, verbal abuse, malevolence]. Be kind and helpful to one another, tender-hearted [compassionate, understanding], forgiving one another [readily and freely], just as God in Christ also forgave you.”  Ephesians 4:31-32 (AMP)

Moving Forward

I pray that you’ve gained a fresh revelation about the power of forgiveness. I’d like to finish with:

“Then let us not criticize one another anymore, but rather determine this—not to put an obstacle or a stumbling block or a source of temptation in another believer’s way.” Romans 14:13 AMP

“So then, let us aim for harmony in the church and try to build each other up.” Romans 14:19 NLT

Let’s pray

I invite you to join me:

I will embrace the new life Jesus has for me, the abundant life as I pursue righteousness and godly living. I use the authority given to me by Jesus to dispel my wrong attitudes and they will no longer dominate me. I tear up the deep roots of unforgiveness from my life and I ask for a forgiving heart. I repent of allowing offences to turn into bitterness and take hold of me, I command all traces of it to leave in Jesus’ name. I ask for forgiveness and I extend forgiveness to those who have sinned against me. I ask for an increase in my faith, may I confidently trust in God and in His power.

Jesus, I hand to You all bitterness, wrath, anger, perpetual animosity, resentment and strife. I apologise for my fault-finding and slanderous ways. Help me to never again be spiteful, verbal abusive or hostile. Help me to be kind and helpful towards others.

Thank You Jesus for redeeming me and I seal the past with Your precious blood.

Holy Spirit I ask for a new heart, one that is full of mercy, grace and unending love. Grant me a heart that is tender, compassionate and full of understanding. Let me be eager to readily forgive because I have a heart that doesn’t latch onto hurt but quickly releases it to Jesus.

Holy Spirit please lead and guide me each and every step of the way.

In Jesus’ precious name I pray. Amen.⁴

Many blessings, Keona

Notes:

1. Earley, Dave. The 21 Most Effective Prayers of the Bible. United States of America: Barbour Publishing, Inc. 2005. Pages 164-167
2. Jon W. Quinn, from Expository Files 16.2; February 2009. http://www.bible.ca/ef/expository-luke-17-5-6.htm
3. ‘Why Jesus Compared Unforgiveness To the Sycamine Tree’ by Rick Renner, December 27, 2016. https://renner.org/why-jesus-compared-unforgiveness-to-the-sycamine-tree/

This is also a really interesting article: https://www.charismamag.com/spirit/spiritual-growth/25415-mulberry-the-casket-tree

4. For the prayer I used the verses mentioned as well as part of Rick Renner’s prayer found at: https://renner.org/its-time-for-you-to-speak-to-yourself/