The Danger of Unforgiveness

It will also keep people from wanting to be around us:. Well, if we do not forgive those who have wronged us, we will not be forgiven ourselves:. You see forgiveness is important to God. You see God calls us to love those around us, even our enemies:. You see God is love 1 John 4: He forgives us, and we do not even ask for it! You see forgiveness is important, "paramount" in our faith.

Scripture is full of examples of forgiveness. Now when we are wronged anger is a natural response, but we have to be careful with it. It is not a sin to become angry, but it can become a sin if that anger goes "unchecked" and becomes unforgiveness.

You see throughout the word of God we are told to be careful about our anger:. Why should we be careful? It could cause our ruin:. It can be very dangerous! We could end up alienating those around us, close ourselves "off". Not only that, it can hurt our fellowship with God and He cannot effectively use us in ministry. We could even end up doubting our faith, and or turning our backs on the Lord!

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And we could end up not being forgiven for our own sin!! You see you have to ask yourself, "do I have an unforgiving heart, is there someone I have not forgiven who has hurt me? This is not an easy thing for any of us to do! But we must do it!! If most of us were honest we could probably come up with at least one, a few, or many people we have never forgiven?

You can carry them around for years and never even realize it! They can "impaire" you from living your life as God intended!! But God wants us to be free from our past and the things we carry with us that have hurt us, and continue too! The things that, "hold us down".

Unforgiveness is a "big one" for many of us!

Unforgiveness: Spiritual Poison

All it takes is for one hurt that we have suffered to be set aside, "buried inside us". But we have an "awesome" great God who can heal us from the hurt and help us to forgive them! The question is not whether God will help us forgive them, but whether we will allow Him to help us forgive them! So what do we do with this? Do we ask God to help us with our unforgiveness? Or do we just go on like we have, "business as usual"?

You see being able to forgive is very "freeing". Letting go of past hurts and pain will give you a new "lease" so to speak on life! But sometimes, this does takes time, it does not happen overnight. You see we are all "works in progress". There is nothing to be ashamed of if you struggle with unforgiveness. We are all human! Its just the "nature" in us!!

But God wants us to be "whole". He wants more for us!

This can happen, but only through His Son Jesus! When God gets us to a place where we can forgive others, their wrongs. Then, when we are hurt, others mistreat us, etc. We will be better able to forgive them. We will have a "tougher skin" so to speak , fewer things will hurt us. And we will be a " little " more "on our way" to being "conformed" to His Son's image! A message from the heart: Will God accept me?

Does God really care? Brothers and sisters that will not forgive one another. Fellow believers who will not talk to each other, cannot even look at each other and would not dare sit on the same side of the auditorium. Believers who will not forgive their Pastor, and Pastors who will not forgive their people. Is it any wonder that we have so many prayerless and powerless churches?

Forgiveness is costly; we pay the price of the evil we forgive. Yet you're going to live with those consequences whether you want to or not; your only choice is whether you will do so in the bitterness of unforgiveness or the freedom of forgiveness. That's how Jesus forgave you--He took the consequences of your sin upon Himself. All true forgiveness is substitutional, because no one really forgives without bearing the penalty of the other person's sin. Philemon 18 If he hath wronged thee, or oweth thee ought, put that on mine account;. George Woodball was a missionary to London's inner city.

One day a young woman he had led to the Lord came to him and said, "I keep getting worried. Has God really forgiven my past?

Woodball replied, "If this is troubling you, I think I know what God would say to you. He would tell you you mind your own business. He told her that Jesus had made her sins His business. When He took them away, He put them behind His back, dropped them into the depths of the sea, and posted a notice that reads, "No fishing! How marvelous is the forgiveness of God!! That is how we are to forgive our wives and husbands; our children; our parents; our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Some people say "I forgave them, but God made provisions for us to forgive whenever we sin and confess so that we can receive cleansing.

The gospel of Jesus Christ offers forgiveness. Also, from our Bible passage, the king forgave his servant who owed him much. That king is God. Unforgiving attitude invokes the wrath of God and makes Him to hand you over to tormentors — Pro. Unforgiving attitude brings a harvest of evil deeds done to your offender upon you — Matt.