Sunday, 7th June 2020
Pastor Donald Yang
God doesn’t want us to live in pain anymore. The world thinks that the greatest power is retaliation. When people hurt us, we would want to fight back. But God said the greatest power on earth is forgiveness. When we forgive, we unlease the power of God. we know we are forgiven when Jesus died on the cross, all of our sins in the past, in the present and in the furutre are forgiven, He has forgiven us and cleansed us.
“For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” (Matthew 6:14-15)
In here, Jesus taught us to forgive. God said we have been freely forgiven so then we should also freely forgive. The provision of forgiveness is there for us but the application of forgiveness is up to us. If we cannot forgive then we cannot understand the Christ in us.
Pastor Donald shared with us some indicators of what forgiveness is NOT:
- Minimize the wrongdoing
- Find an excuse of the wrongdoing
- Deny the hurt
- Let us continue to be hurt
- Only an emotional reaction
Forgiveness is not saying that it never happened. On the other hand, forgiveness is:
- Give up the right to retaliate
- I will not hurt you even though you have hurt me
- A decision made by willpower
- An action to make us more like Jesus
- Be willing to let go of the weapon of anger, retaliation and counterattack
Forgiveness is to give up my logical right to fight back and to get even. Just like what Jesus did on the cross, when He asked the Father to forgive the people. When we are willing to let go and forgive, God can do in our lives more than what we can ever imagine!
So why do we need to forgive?
- Because God has forgiven us
- Because Jesus wants us to forgive
- It helps with our prayers being answered
- It makes us more like Jesus
- It reflects God’s forgiveness towards us
- It releases others from bondages
“If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” (John 20:23)
Very often we are waiting for them to come and say “sorry”, but we need to know that forgiveness is never about “them”, it’s about us. So now we know why we need to forgive, then the important question for us is how to forgive?
- Admit our pain to Jesus
- Make the decision to “obey Jesus, forgive those who have wronged me” – forgive them doesn’t mean they are worth it, but it means that Jesus has forgiven us
- Give your rights to God and let God retaliate
- Ask God to forgive those who have wronged us
- Pray for those who have wronged us
- Take a step forward to bless those who have wronged us
- Receive the grace, healing and release from Jesus for the hurt deep inside our hearts
Today God is talking to each one of us, to let Him deal with our pains and to set us free. The power of forgiveness is in our hands, and it’s up to us to use it today.