Today's Negativity Fast Tip. Unlock the power of forgiveness with 4 practical tips—start your journey to healing and letting go of negativity!
Trevor Lund has helped over 10,000 people fast from negativity since 2006. Check out all the tips and tools to fast from negativity https://revtrev.link/tips Join the negativity fast at https://revtrev.link/fast and find out how to Live LIGHT Above the Negativity https://revtrev.link/bless
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You were created to walk with God in the garden of the cool of the day. And sin came into the world and you bore the consequences. And Jesus came and took your place and offered you his yoke that is easy and his burden that is light.
You are a living light. You're a child of God. Creation longs to be revealed. Don't conform but be transformed so you can have peace and hope and joy at all times and in every situation.
There's so much to say about forgiveness. The verse from Ephesians 4:32, "Instead be kind to each other, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, just as in God, Christ has forgiven you."
I have learned forgiveness because I've had to walk people through the process of forgiveness. I've had to forgive myself. I've had to be forgiven myself. I don't want to make this really long. I'm just going to give you the highlights. But I do think it's very important that we forgive with our whole heart.
Parable of the unforgiving servant
That comes from the parable Jesus told, the unmerciful servant. When the one servant gets forgiven, basically, it's a hundred denarii would be a third of a year's salary. A denarius was what you got for one day's work. So a third of a year's salary, he was... No, that was what the other one? He wasn't forgiven, actually. It was a significant amount, but he wasn't forgiven.
The first servant had just an astronomical amount that he could never pay back, and the King forgave him. He went to the next servant who had a significant amount. It was painful. I think that gets lost over too much, where people think that, oh, it's only like 100 as opposed to thousands. But no, it's a third of a year's salary. I mean, how do you pay that back?
The man threw him in prison, right? His friends found out about it, went to the king. The king said, "I'm going to hand you over to the torturers until you can pay what you owe." And then Jesus sums up, "and this is how my father will treat each of you if you don't forgive each other from your heart."
Now, the breakthrough for me came when I understood what the Hebrew understanding of heart was and is. It's understanding that we understand heart as our emotions, but it is... The Hebrew understanding is, yes, it's our emotions, but it's also the seat of our decision and the seat of our action.
Tip 1 - Know what it means to forgive with your whole heart
So here are the tips to forgive with your whole heart, and yes, I'm glossing over this very quickly. Tip one is you need to know what it means to forgive with your whole heart. What it means to forgive with your whole heart means that you feel like you've forgiven them. Oh, really? That's possible? Yes, it is possible.
Tip 2 - Choose to forgive
Tip number two is that you need to choose to forgive. "Forgive as the Lord forgave you." I've already read that in Ephesians 4. It is a decision. It's a decision of the will to forgive.
Number two, it's an action that needs to happen when we have forgiven. And often it is simply blessing those who curse you. Sometimes we need to forgive people that aren't safe for us. So we can't go back to them and bless them in any tangible way, but we can speak a blessing over them.
And in my time working with people, which is closing in on 30 years now, it started out like I was really confused because some people could just make that decision, and then they would feel like they were forgiven. And other people would... They'd choose to forgive, but they wouldn't feel forgiven.
I'd get them to bless. And as soon as they would bless and not curse, they would feel like they're forgiven. And then there's other people who could bless and say they're forgiven and bless and then never... They couldn't feel that peace that comes when we forgive from our whole heart.
And the thing about it is the level of offence has really nothing to do with it because I can be offended that someone cut me off in traffic and then just be angry the rest of the day, even if I say I forgive them and bless them in the name of Jesus.
Or I could go through some horrific experience like... We're talking rape. We're talking affairs. We're talking just horrific things that I've had to, in tears, tell people, "you need to forgive." God wants you to feel the forgiveness, to feel the peace that comes from forgiving.
Tip 3 - know how to feel like you’ve forgiven
And so that is the third, the fourth tip, is you feel the peace that comes from forgiving. How do you do that? What we've learned is that if people don't feel forgiveness, we need to go to Holy Spirit and ask him what's going on.
When have I ever felt this way before? God, what am I feeling? What am I feeling? Because it has nothing to do with the level of offence. It has everything to do with the lie that I'm believing. If I believe God is going to let them off the hook if I forgive, and trust me, people believe this, it's hard for me to feel forgiveness.
If I believe that I'm not going to be safe, I can't trust God to keep me safe if I forgive, I'm not going to feel forgiveness. If I trust... We can go on forever because there are all kinds of different lies that we believe, right? We believe in all kinds of things.
And it's not for me to say, "Okay, this is the lie that you're believing." It's for me to tell you, "Go let Holy Spirit show you the lie that you're believing." And when, however, he shows you that lie, often it comes down to, "I can't trust God."
How do you trust God?
So how do you trust God? "Cast your cares on him because he cares for you." You need to understand that he cares for you. And not just get it here, but get it here. God doesn't want you to not feel forgiveness. He wants you to be free. He has called you to freedom.
And so when I don't feel that release, I know I'm believing a lie. So I go to God and I say, "God, can you show me what I'm believing?" Sometimes it's a memory that comes up, and I had a similar situation there, or it was the same trigger back there that is getting triggered now.
It's the same lie that I was believing over here, that I'm still believing here now, or I'm believing again now because I thought I dealt with that, but it's back. But I want you to know, you can feel like you've forgiven that person. You can find the freedom that comes from forgiveness.
Next Steps
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Carpe Vitae!
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