Part 11 . A Free Man is Different From a Slave Man

Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.

This was first published in my AddInvestmentGroup.com blog on 01/26/2014

Continued from previous blog post

And as we have said before, does that mean you have to go to every single person?

It depends upon the situation and we will get to that in a minute.

But specifically asking for forgiveness.

Now, remember what we said in the beginning… “For some people, they will just  think I am weak. ” or “Suppose they reject me?” or “Suppose they will take advantage of me?” or “Suppose they misunderstand me?”

It doesn’t make any difference.  There’s nothing in the scripture about conditional forgiveness.

It doesn’t say “Ask your brother to forgive you, unless your going to be misunderstood, unless your going to be rejected, unless it’s going to be painful…” none of that.

Forgiving no matter what the situation may be.

And then I think about this.

To deal with anger:  Lay down your anger and bitterness.

If you put it in this way…

… “By my act of my will Father, and the power of the Holy Spirit who lives within me, I lay down this anger.  I lay down this bitterness.  I lay down this terrible anger I’ve had inside of me.”

By an act of my will, not my feelings, but by an act of my will, I choose, I make a choice to lay this down.  And in the process of doing that, by the power of the Holy Spirit within you…

… you can lay down anger and bitterness and remove it from your life.

But you have to come at it the way we are saying it, and that is, first of all acknowledging His forgiveness, and acknowledging we don’t deserve it, and acknowledging how many times He has forgiven you, and His promise to forgive, and what you are doing is you are laying down.

Well you might say “I’m angry at several people.” You might have to do it for one person at a time.  But I am only going to be able to lay it down when I genuinely acknowledge His forgiveness toward me and the grace that has surrounded and filled you, overflowed you all these years!

Then you will acknowledge it.  Then you will deal with it.  And until you do, you will not, it just doesn’t happen that way.

Now let’s suppose you have hurt someone and you really want to deal with it, God will show you if you need to go to that person.

And normally, under most conditions, you need to say to them “My attitude toward you has not been right.”

Now let’s say they really wronged you, and I learned this myself when I had to go to my step-father and I had lots of reasons not to forgive.  And when somebody hurts your mother, you can almost defend it up to God, almost, but not quite.

And so I remembered it took me probably a few months to decide how I was going to do it.  How am I going to say to him “Would you forgive me for my attitude toward you when I can still see in my mind and remember the things that you said and the way you treated my mother..” what am I going to say?

It took me several months to realize I had to go and say to him…

…  “I need to ask you to forgive me because of my attitude toward you because it has been wrong.  I have been resentful, I’ve been angry, and I need to ask you to forgive me.”

Period.

Not because “you did this and you did that” in other words, genuine forgiveness, watch this..

.. genuine forgiveness does not build up a defense, and say “I am going to forgive you, but…”.

… genuine forgiveness forgives without limitations, and no demands.

And I remember what happened, because I have never seen this in all the years I have lived with him.

First he said “Oh, you don’t need to say that to me, I’m the one who needs to be asking you.” and I have never known him to be asking anybody for forgiveness.

Anyway, he came around the table.  Hugged me, you name it, and everything else went on, but I had to take the initiative, he would have died, before he would have ever said “I am wrong.”

Here’s what I want you to see…

… when you and I deal with forgiveness in our life, we set other people free!

That’s how he got free.  That’s how he got saved.  He got free when I got free to set him free, by saying “I was wrong in what I did”.

That’s what true genuine forgiveness is all about.

Then someone might say, “Well suppose they live a thousand miles away and I can’t get to them, and suppose they have already died?”

I meet people, rather often, who have a problem with a father who has abused them, a young woman, whose been abused by her father, now he is dead, and then here she is 50 or 60 years of age, and she kept it all these years.

So how do you deal with that when the person is already dead and gone?

Here’s the best way to deal with it.  Somebody says “well, I am just going to tell God I’m forgiving him”.  No.  It’s not mouth, it’s emotions, it’s feelings.

You put two chairs, face each other.  You sit down in one of them and you imagine, your father, or your mother, or a friend, employee, or whoever it is you need to forgive, who is dead now, you set them in that chair, and you can visualize them.

Because you can.  You can visualize them sitting there and here’s what you do ..

… you say to them exactly what you would say if you were facing them.

It’s going to be a little easier, because they can’t say anything back, and there’s no defense, you do all the talking, you are free to say whatever you need to say, you can say  to them…

.. “I want to say to you Dad / whoever it might be, I had the wrong spirit towards you.  I am confessing that my attitude has not been right, I’ve held it against you all these years, and I want you to forgive me, and I know that my feelings toward you has not been Christ-like feelings, although I claim to be a Christian.. “…

… however you want to say it, and then once you say that, and once you deal with that,  and you forgive them…

… you claim by faith, that that is the end of it.

Because you have nor reason to do otherwise.  You have done everything you know to do to express your forgiving spirit, and that is the end of it.

You might say “You mean to tell me to sit in a chair, it’s going to make me look like a fool!”

No it’s not, you sit in this chair, and they sit in that other chair, let’s put it this way, suppose there’s somebody who who is alive, and you are having a very difficult time doing that with, and you know what?  You can practice!

You’d say “Practice forgiving?”

Absolutely.  You set him or her in the other chair.  Let’s say you and your wife or your husband are having a a terrible time.  And you just can’t forgive.

You want to, you really do, but, and you are just feeling it.  When he has gone, you set him in that chair.  Now don’t knock the chair over.  🙂

You put him in a chair, now I’m serious, say what you know you ought to say.  You may have to say “God I;m not feeling this, but I know it’s right.” and then just say it.

You may have to sit him or her in that chair 5 or 6 times, but you know what’s going to happen?

You sit him in the chair, and one time you are going to get up from that chair, and you’re going to be free, you are going to feel it in your soul, then you can say to him face to face, “Let me tell you how I feel, let me tell you what’s been going on in my life.”

You can tell him that you practiced.  But I want to tell you this… you want to melt a man’s heart or a woman’s heart?  That’ll melt him.  When she finds out that you want to be forgiving so much that you practiced it, in order to say it right.

Now the question is, how will you know if you have really forgiven him?

If you have forgiven:  You will not feel the same way.

The primary way you can tell is the next time you think about them,  the next time you see them, you will  no longer have it in your heart, it will no longer be static in your heart.  There’s going to be this sense of freedom.

A whole different attitude about them and what’s going on in their life.  You will not feel the same way

If you have forgiven:  Your harsh feelings are replaced with compassion.

And your harsh feelings?  We all have harsh feelings toward those who have hurt us deeply.  Harsh feelings will be totally different and replaced with compassion, because remember, you got free, you got liberated, you are no longer a slave.  No chains in your heart, you got free.

The third thing is…

If you have forgiven:  You will accept them the way they are.

Somehow you can accept them the way they are.  Now that doesn’t mean everything will just be plain perfect.  Remember what we are after …

…. our goal is freedom in your life.  Freedom in YOUR life.  And oftentimes when you get free, somebody else gets free.

And then the last thing, that I think is so evident, when you really have forgiven someone else, here’s what’s going to happen…

If you have forgiven:  You will consider reasons for their actions.

… “I wonder why they did that!” What caused it, I wonder why they did that.

If you have forgiven:  You will thank God for allowing this to happen to teach you about His grace.

When you are really and truly set  free, you are going to look back and think “Lord, watch this carefully… Thank you dear God for allowing this in my life to teach me about how awesome Your grace is in my life, how many times You have forgiven me, how you have changed my life with your grace and love, thank you, for teaching me about grace that I would never have known, had I not learned it in this fashion.

You do not have to hold on to unforgiveness or resentment or bitterness or hostility.  You don’t have to be chained and in bondage, imprisoned by an attitude, that is a continuous destruction that goes on in your life, over and over and over again.

It may fool a lot of people, you may do very well on the outside, but sooner or later, the consequences are coming home to you.

It is my prayer, that you will be wise enough, as God the Holy Spirit has brought people into your mind, even while this hour has been going on, brought people to your mind that you need to deal with, that you will be wise enough, courageous enough, to deal with it, and I have only simply  given you a way on how to do it, there may be other ways,  I know this one works.

I hope you will be wise enough to let God set you free.  Your testimony to your children, your spouse, your co-employees, you won’t be able to keep it to yourself…

… because a free man is different from a slave man.

And Father, how grateful we are, that Your grace is indescribable.  Inestimable.  Immeasurable, there’s no way for us to describe it adequately, Your grace toward us, I pray that every person who hears / read this message, will be wise enough to take these steps that will set them free, and more than likely, someone else.

We pray this in Jesus name, Amen.” – Dr. Charles Stanley

Related Articles:

Part 1 . Many People Are Angry and Do Not Know It

Part 2 . What Is Forgiveness

Part 3 . Obstacles to Forgiveness

Part 4 . The Conditional Sentence

Part 5 . Seventy Times Seven

Part 6 . Unforgiveness is a divider

Part 7 . Is there something you are holding in your life

Part 8 . What am I willing to do about it

Part 9 . How Do You Deal With Anger

Part 10 . Genuinely Forgiven

Part 11 . A Free Man is Different From a Slave Man

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