Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. Ephesians 4:32.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God (אלהים) says:
To truly live the abundant life in Christ that I sent Jesus to give you, you must forgive. To run your race with no encumbrance, to go forward to your high calling in Christ, you must forget what lies behind that would ensnare you and tangle you up in bitter roots. Instead, to reach forward unencumbered to what is ahead, you must turn away from the past failings of yourself and others. Otherwise, you will be stuck standing still and looking back.
But Jesus said to him, “No one, after putting his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.” Luke 9:62.
I tell you how to forgive but many of you do not understand what I am telling you, but if you do, it will renew your youth and put a bounce in your step and a twinkle in your eye. Just as it does for Me. It makes Me sing songs of deliverance around you and lead you out in triumph. Come share your Father’s joy!
Surely in a flood of great waters they will not reach him. You are my hiding place; You preserve me from trouble; You surround me with songs of deliverance. Psalm 32:6-7.
The LORD your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in His love He will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing. Zephaniah 3:17.
I tell you to be kind to one another tender hearted and to forgive JUST AS IN CHRIST I have forgiven you. How did I fogive you in Christ? Yes by the payment of His blood and the offering of His eternal life in the flesh for the one Adam murdered by rooting out the imperishable seed of My Word and replacing it with the perishable seed of lies, but there is more. In what way have I forgiven you? I accounted all your sins to Christ and accounted His righteousness to you. Just as I forthtold in the shadow of the burnt offering, sin offering, and guilt offering as of old, the substance of which is Christ. Remember Jesus has released you from your sins by His blood and made you to be a kingdom, priests unto Me. He has anointed you.
If the anointed priest sins, bringing guilt on the people, he must bring to the LORD a young bull without defect as a sin offering for the sin he has committed. He is to present the bull at the entrance to the tent of meeting before the LORD. He is to lay his hand on its head and slaughter it there before the LORD. Then the anointed priest shall take some of the bull’s blood and carry it into the tent of meeting. He is to dip his finger into the blood and sprinkle some of it seven times before the LORD, in front of the curtain of the sanctuary. Leviticus 4:3-6.
God made Jesus who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. 2 Corinthians 5:21.
May I ask you a question, if I accounted all your sins to Jesus, do you have them anymore? The answer has to be “no,” you do not. If I put them on Him they are no longer on you. And in exchange I gave you His righteousness, which is My righteousness for He and I are One. If you believe My Word the sin is no longer imputed to you but to Him and in Him I took care of it. My wrath was poured out on Him. It is finished.
So how do I forgive you who are in Christ? Let the Holy Spirit testify to you:
And the Holy Spirit also testifies to us; for after saying, “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days,” says the LORD, “I will put My laws upon their heart, and on their mind I will write them,” and then He says “Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.” Hebrews 10:15-17.
They are not just forgiven, your sins are gone, like the mist in the morning sun, borne by Him who knew no sin but became sin for you all. Jesus, Jesus, who makes it as if you never fell, Jesus, Jesus, the Light where darkness can’t prevail.
“I have wiped out your transgressions like a thick cloud and your sins like a heavy mist. Return to Me, for I have redeemed you.” Isaiah 44:22.
If it is forgotten, it is gone. If you forget it there is nothing to forgive. To forgive someone as I forgive you in Christ you forgive it like it never happened. So really there is nothing there to forgive. That takes away the struggle. If there is nothing, why get bitter over it? I am not bitter about any of you, no matter what did against Me. Jesus bore it all. I am made whole.
When you come to Me in Christ, He has made you blameless in My sight.
For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in [ac]heaven. And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach. Colossians 1:19-22.
You have to come to the marriage feast of the Lamb properly dressed in Christ or you are still in your sins, only IN CHRIST are they gone.
It is up to you whether you receive that gift or not, but as far as I am concerned there is no further offering for sin. It is taken care of. But as Jesus told the Pharisees, “Unless you believe that I AM, you will die in your own sins,” if you do not repent, you will all likewise perish. But that is up to you, as far as I am concerned if you are IN CHRIST the sin is gone.
But as far as you are concerned I tell you to forgive as I have forgiven you in Christ. Vengeance is Mine. I am the only one qualified to see into the hearts of men and know who has repented and who has not. You cannot.
My servant Paul understood this from Jesus, though he termed himself the worst of sinners for his prior persecution and murder of Christians, after he encountered Jesus and learned My ways from Him, he not only forgave himself but he forgave all his former friends who were now out to stop him by murdering him or at least getting him incarcerated. How did he do this and clear his conscience to go forward unhindered as if he and all around him had not sinned? He focused on one thing and it gave him everything:
Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet but one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:12-13.
Paul told you to imitate Me as My dear children and walk in love. That is the very next sentence after he tells you to forgive others as I have forgiven you in Christ. And the way I forgive you in Christ is I put all your sins on Him and they are gone. He paid the price and I raised Him from the dead with the sins gone. I look at you and see NO fault at all. Your sins and offenses I remember NO MORE. And in the original language of Greek it was written in that is a double negative that cannot be broken.
So when you keep asking Me to forgive you about something you have already confessed to Me and repented of, I do not know of what you are speaking. That is gone. As far as I am concerned it never took place. Do you see why you can come boldly, with complete confidence to My throne because of your great High Priest who became sin for you? But He did not stay that way. And, like Him, neither have you.
Stop struggling with forgiveness of another. Just see it as having never happened. If I, who know and see all, can do this, you who are in My image and likeness now that you have been recreated in My image in Christ Jesus can do it as well. I give you grace on top of grace in Jesus, My grace is sufficient for you to overcome that thorn in the flesh.
There are many reasons I tell you to forgive and they are all for your benefit, such as the standard by which you judge others is the standard I must use on you, which is a spiritual law, and if you cannot forgive you are telling Me the blood of Jesus is not enough to take away sins and so I must apply that to you and you are still in your sins. Also if you cannot forgive bitter roots grow in your heart that keep your door closed to Me and all the benefits, such as healing and provision, that I am trying so hard to give you but cannot get through your door that is all jammed up with bitter roots. Unforgiveness is taking revenge on yourself for the harm others have caused, which makes no sense.
But above all, once you start practicing forgiveness it will give you authority and joy. Authority over the harm done to turn it around to good in your life and authority over your enemies who cannot stop your progress upward though they schemed to do so to thwart your dreams. Like Joseph’s brothers who sold him as a slave but could not stop him because he walked away from it and forgot it, at least he never brought it up again on his own. And forgiving will give you joy, overflowing, amazing joy in the midst of your enemies. Like Paul in prison, overflowing with joy at being in My Will and not at all hating his enemies for putting him in there. Free of offense there are no limits to how fast you can advance. Offense and bitterness, unforgiveness and hate will hinder your healing, increase, growth, prosperity, and peace. Unforgiveness will NEVER give you joy unspeakable filled with glory but forgiving will. It will get the grip of Satan off your life.
For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died; and He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf. 2 Corithians 5:14-15.
See yourself as a new creation in Christ and be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:6-7.
And then what are you to think upon and keep in your mind so you do not slip back into unforgiveness?
Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things. The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you. Philippians 4:8-9.
Once you start practicing forgiveness and treat all offenses as if they never happened, including your own that you have confessed to Me, a garden will spring up in your heart as you pour the blood of Jesus on your past.
The mountains and the hills will break forth into shouts of joy before you, And all the trees of the field will clap their hands. Instead of the thorn bush the cypress will come up, And instead of the nettle the myrtle will come up, And it will be a memorial to the LORD, For an everlasting sign which will not be cut off. Isaiah 55:12-13.
Forgiveness is a beautiful gift. It releases the person whom you have shut out from your life to be whole again. David, the man after My own heart, was fascinated by My love and forgiveness but he could not forgive himself in the way that I forgave him after he sinned. His sin was always before him though it was no longer before Me. Psalm 51:3. He wrote of Me:
He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His lovingkindness toward those who fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. Psalm 103:10-12.
Remember, David wrote Psalm 22, an eyewitness account of the crucifixion of Jesus a thousand years before it took place, even to the gambling for his robe, the mocking, the thirst, the pierced hands and feet, and the dust of death before crucifixion was known. He called what I would do in Jesus singular justice and longed for the day when sins would imputed to Jesus.
How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered! How blessed is the man to whom the LORD does not impute iniquity. Psalm 32:1-2.
You are living in that day now. In Jesus, your sins and offenses I remember NO MORE, for they have become His and He and I took care of them. They are justly dealt with and you are free. It was for freedom that Christ freed you, do not put yourself or others back in the slavery of sin and death a second time. Be grateful. The one who is forgiven much, loves much, and I have forgiven you everything.
Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts; And let him return to the LORD, and He will have compassion on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon. ‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,’ declares the LORD. ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways And My thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there without watering the earth and making it bear and sprout, and furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater; so will My word be which goes forth from My mouth; it will not return to Me empty, without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it. For you will go out with joy and be led forth with peace; the mountains and the hills will break forth into shouts of joy before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands. Instead of the thorn bush the cypress will come up, and instead of the nettle the myrtle will come up, and it will be a memorial to the LORD, For an everlasting sign which will not be cut off. Isaiah 55:7-13.
It is hard for many of you to forgive but it does not have to be. I just look at Jesus and I forgive you all immediately. Do the same. And always remember that IN CHRIST I have forgiven you EVERYTHING as if you never did it. Go and do the same.
Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. Hebrews 12:1-2.
I love you and that is why I sent Jesus and reconciled you to Myself. You are precious to Me, precious enough for Me to give My Son over to death to save you.
I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me. Galatians 2:20.