Forgiveness and Family

As I look to see that I have not written in a while I must apologize. We have recently had 8 students involved in our 4 week Advanced Training, I found myself overwhelmed with clients and needing a rest. On Tuesday as I sat in discussion about compassion, forgiveness, and judgements I was reminded by the Lord of the importance of forgiveness. As I met with several clients the Spirit immediately showed me the importance of them letting go of judgments to find freedom. We are told throughout our Christian lives that we are forgiven and then to forgive but we are often not shown how to walk this road. Especially if I have been in a legalistic church the expectation is that of course I would just forgive and who should be taught. The truth I find is that while many know they need to forgive somewhere deep inside they have not had a revelation by the Spirit of God on how to forgive so they stay trapped in a prison of emotional pain. First we must get a revelation of how much we have been forgiven, in Colossians 2:14 it says record of our sins was nailed to the cross and taken away. In Jesus' parable of the king taking an account He describes one slave owing 10,000 talents (which if you do the math comes out to be $120 billion in today's dollars). Something that is rather confusing about forgiveness is that it is not forgiving a person as it is "sending away" (the original greek word) the debt that was incurred. In other words when someone hurts us (sinnning against us) we hold a debt against them because our sense of justice has been violated. If I attempt to forgive them but do not release them of the debt then I just remain in bondage to the debt. When the king in the parable took an account, Jesus was showing us in order to forgive we must see what the debt is (what we believe the person owes us for hurting us). We are commanded under the New Covenant of Grace to forgive in many places in the Word but we must understand that any command given in the New Covenant can only be followed through by the power of the Holy Spirit working within us. In other words if we have not received a revelation of how to walk New Covenant forgiveness we will appeal to our fleshly resources which won't work. If I have tried to forgive someone unsuccessfully (meaning I still feel anger or hurt when I think of them) then I have not had New Covenant forgiveness revealed to me. A collegue in ministry had a revelation of Matthew 7:1-2 on Judgements and why Jesus would say "Do not judge...". This revelation was that when we are hurt by another person we naturally judge them for how they have hurt us, which then produces anger and this keeps us connected to the person in a damaging way through sin/judgement. Since judgements are a legal perspective, we in escense set the person up as guilty in our court of law (with us as the judge). I have walked many clients through the courtroom in their mind (just picturing a courtroom) to have them see the judgements they have made in their hearts and then release them. It is the fact that we are forgiven that empowers us to forgive and there are many scriptures tying our forgiveness of others to receiving God's forgiveness of us. How does this relate to the family? We are hurt most deeply in intimate relationships, so thus there is a great need to have a working model of forgiveness in our families. Denying the hurts that have occurred in a family is what leads to continued broken relationships in the future. As my colleague shared that 60% of his one on one ministry is dealing with forgiveness I began to sense the Lord nudging me to make this more functional in my own life and family. The Lord then helped me walk through some self-judgements and other judgements that had been hidden. I am now seeking the Lord on how to teach my kids and family a working model of New Covenant forgiveness. Forgiveness is a powerful part of walking in freedom under the New Covenant. I pray the Lord would lead you in forgiving those debts/judgements that have hindered your freedom.

In His Peace,
Bret Rutland