My sister Grace is a lovely person. She is a mixture of gentleness and strength. Deeply in love with the Lord, she is totally engaged in her faith and live with the hope of meeting with her Savior one day.
We have always been very close and I love her like a mother. She taught me everything I know about cooking and housekeeping.
When my dear sister lost her husband and best friend, I never heard her complain to God about it. On the contrary, she was exhorting others to come close to God, especially in times of hardship and sorrow.
I have always admired her courage and strength of character.
A few years back, when we lost our young brother, she was the one handling everything, from making all the funerals arrangements to comforting our mother, who was completely devastated.
And in the midst of all this, she would sing canticles and praise God that His will be done.
The Last time I spoke to Grace, she was telling me about a spiritual attack she’s been through.
She was walking down the street when she started to feel sick. Later in the day, at my parents house where she was visiting, my brother (who is a minister) and Pastor C., a friend of the family, came to pray for her. Both received the same message from the Lord. She has been visited by the spirit of death.
My brother’s revelation was even more specific: She was hurt.
Someone did something that deeply offended her and she did not forgive.
This caused her to become impure in the Lord’s sight and opened a door to this evil spirit whose aim was to make her sick, blind, then lose her mind, and later on kill her.
Grace related that a few days before, she overheard a good friend and colleague talking about her in words she couldn’t believe. The lady was saying how much she hates and despises her.
Grace was shocked because she was the lady’s confidante. She would talked to Grace about anything, even her private life, ask for advise, and would pray with her.
Grace was deeply affected. Even though she was the one betrayed and hurt, she was also the one who was attacked by the evil spirit.
Thank God, she repented, and the Lord forgave and restored her.
I’m happy my sister is alive and well.
The lesson I drawn from Grace’s experience is that God is the one who deals with our enemies. It’s never up to us to do it.
An entire life of consecration and dedication to God could have been ruined by this one mistake.
Assuredly betrayal hurts. When it comes from the world it seems alright because we don’t expect the world to love us, but when it comes from loved ones, especially Christians, we are so deeply grieved that though we try hard we sometimes fail to forgive.
Unforgiving soils us and cut us from God presence.
Forgiving others is so important that the Lord Jesus, teaching His disciples how to pray, stated: “And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors” Matthew 6:12.
Jesus exhorts us to forgive in many other verses of the Scripture. For example in Matthew 5:23-24 “Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift”. And His famous answer to peter asking “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times? Jesus said to him, ‘I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.” Matthew 18:21-22.
Sometimes we may think we have forgiven, but whenever the name of the person who commits the offense is mentioned, we feel uncomfortable and don’t want to deal with him or her. Truth is deep down we’re still hurt and if we are honest enough we will admit we have never forgiven. Our little ego is still being tortured and our pride affected, and that is why we don’t forgive.
Unforgiving whether it comes from us or from somebody toward us acts as a chain that binds us spiritually. By doing this we not only put ourselves at the Enemy’s mercy, but others too.
Forgiving means forgetting, the same way God erases our sins and does not remember them (Ezekiel 33:15-16, Psalms 103:12, Luke 7:36-50). It is certainly not easy and that’s why we should cry for help, seek actively in prayer that God give us a heart like His, humble, loving, and merciful.
For me this is the accomplishment of 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 “Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
So let’s forgive and experience how good it feels to be free. It is so worth it.