Psalm 30:11 – 12 (NCV) “You
changed my sorrow into dancing. You took away my clothes of sadness, and
clothed me in happiness. I will sing to you and not be silent. Lord, my God, I
will praise you forever.”
Not too long ago I had allowed unforgiveness to consume
every fiber of my being. I was very angry over a situation in my life and as I
allowed anger to fester. Of course this produced absolutely nothing in me...nor did it solve the problem. The only thing "festering" over the situation did was gave Satan the opportunity to construct an
intricately woven chain around my neck in the form of bitterness, anger,
resentment, and jealousy.
I didn’t even realize it was happening until one Sunday my
pastor pointed out the symptom…unforgiveness.
Funny, I thought I had the forgiveness
issue “under control” until I heard:
“Someone does something to hurt you and you forgive them.
But what happens at the very thought of the issue? Can you see them the way God sees them or are you still offended by
what they have done to you?”
“Whoa, what’s that?”
I suddenly felt the tiring weight of chain around my neck” pulling me down as someone’s
face came rushing to the front of my mind. With each thought I saw clearly
another link in the long chain holding me captive. Why hadn’t I seen
the chain earlier?
It was hard for me to admit that I had allowed the
construction of this “unforgiveness chain.” I added bitterness link after anger
link at the mere thought of this person. On this particular Sunday, warmth
washed over me and I heard the words deep in my spirit… “give the chain to me… you’ve carried it for too long.”
I saw clearly Satan’s weapon of choice that morning… Unforgiveness.
I had held onto to every offense – which allowed anger,
bitterness and resentment to fester. Hadn’t I forgiven each offense? Not really…When
it came right down to it… I had forgiven in my own strength… that means I was
fighting the way the world fights. If I
was going to fight unforgiveness and break its stronghold, Jesus had to lead
the charge.
2 Corinthians 10:3-5 says:
For though we live in
the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are
not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to
demolish strongholds. We demolish
arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of
God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
There is nothing I can do in my own strength, but by the
power of the Holy Spirit the Bible promises me that I can demolish the
stronghold of unforgiveness. Before I left church that morning I chose to
forgive; shattering the unforgiveness chain once and for all.
That morning, God changed my sorrow into dancing. The God of
the universe delivered me from the weight of my unforgiveness chain and I will
forever praise Him for His mercy and kindness.
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