Colossians 3:13
Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.

There are several benefits of forgiveness. It can release us from the bondage of bitterness, it can release the other person from the guilt they may feel, and it can heal relationships. Despite these wonderful benefits of forgiveness, why do we forgive? Paul tells us plainly that we are to “forgive as the Lord forgave you.” We should forgive because we are forgiven.

It sounds simple, but it’s complicated. In the midst of our fevered emotions and the unfortunate events that triggered everything, we begin to talk ourselves out of forgiveness because our situation is somehow “different”. We may want to hold on to these broken feelings so we can stay in control. Ironically, we loose control when we hold onto those feelings. We ultimately become a slave to the painful memories that we rehearse over and over in our head.

In the surrounding verses, Paul instructs us about virtues that we should “put on” like clothing. He says, “clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience…and over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.” Love has the ability to unify anything. When Jesus said to love our enemy, he knew that love would bring about compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. How could we not forgive someone if all of these virtues are flowing out of us when we love?

The word “forgive” has a revealing Greek root. It comes from “Apoluo” which means to “set free” or to “let go”. What are you holding onto and refusing to let go? Forgiveness is about setting free the person that offended you. It’s about releasing the memory that has been controlling your mind. We find incredible freedom in forgiveness. Above all, we give grace to others because it was given to us first. We must be dispensers of God’s grace and overcome evil with good.

Matthew 7:7-8
“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.”

Instead of writing a devotional this week, I’m going to give you an excerpt from John Wimber’s book, Power Healing. It’s one of the many first-hand stories of God using people to heal the sick today:

In 1983 I [John Wimber] had an experience in Goteborg, Sweden, that illustrates the power of touch. I was speaking (through an interpreter) at a four-day healing conference in a Baptist church. There were 300 people in attendance, and for the first two days they were quite reserved, not demonstrating much of a response to my teaching. On the third day of the conference I sense that God wanted to heal a woman in the audience who had cancer in her left breast. I said, ‘I believe God wants to heal a woman who has cancer in the left breast.’

Immediately a lady in the balcony stood up and said that she had been interceding and fasting several days for a woman in San Francisco who had cancer in her left breast. Her appeal was eloquent and compelling, but I sensed that the woman for whom I had the word of knowledge was in the audience. So I said, ‘This is not what the Lord is doing at this moment.’ I then said ‘This woman is in the room now. Only this morning she was released from the hospital. She is sixty years old [I cannot remember her exact age today], and she is seated directly in front of me and slightly to the right.’

In response, a woman in a dark, full-length wool coat stood up and said in Swedish, ‘It’s me, it’s me.’ I asked her to come forward for prayer, and as she did I asked for volunteers to pray for her.

Three men from the first row came forward, two standing behind the woman and one in front of her. I asked the woman if she would mind folding her hands over her breast, and allowing one of the men to put his hands on her hands. She agreed to do it. (I ask permission to lay hands on people to show respect for their personhood.) The men behind her placed their hands on her shoulders. Then I stepped back and told them to wait for me to pray.

But before the interpreter could give them my instructions I felt a faith command welling up in me, and I yelled in English, ‘Be healed in the name of Jesus.’ Hardly had the words left my mouth when the power of God came down on all four people; they began shaking and were knocked off their feet to the floor! It was as though the healing power of God went into the woman and out into the three men, or vice versa. The interpreter was so overwhelmed that she began speaking to me in Swedish and to the audience in English! All four rose weeping and praising God, the woman later reporting her healing.

John Wimber, Power Healing, pp. 196-197

Matthew 4:23
And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people.

This week, rather than writing a devotional, I am going to give you a paragraph from Richard Foster’s book titled, Streams of Living Water: Celebrating the Great Traditions of Christian Faith.

Now, Jesus went about proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and its available to all. He has demonstrated the reality of its presence. This dual action of proclamation and demonstration is found throughout the Gospels. “Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people” (Matt. 4:23). There it is: the proclamation of the presence of the kingdom and the demonstration of its life, in this case by the ministry of healing. He gave the same commission to the Twelve: “He sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal,” which is exactly what they did. “They departed and went through the villages, bringing the good news and curing diseases everywhere” (Luke 9:1-6). Again, proclamation and demonstration. He gave exactly the same mission to the larger group of seventy: “Cure the sick who are there, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you’” (Luke 10:9).

Streams of Living Water: Celebrating the Great Traditions of Christian Faith, p. 15, Richard J. Foster

John 14:23
Jesus replied, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.”

Last week we learned from John 15 that we are to obey this command from Jesus, “Love each other as I have loved you.” John 14:23 says that our obedience will result in the Father loving us. When I initially read this, I said to myself, “What? I thought the Father loved the whole world before we loved him!” That is true, John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world…” Is the Bible contradicting itself? Not at all!

The love that is described in John 14:23 isn’t the result of our own religious efforts. This love is God’s “grace” (or favor/special blessing) that is poured out to those who abide in Christ. Paul talks about this love in Ephesians 1:5-6, “In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will… to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.” Did you catch the last part? Grace is freely available to us because it is found “in the One he loves.” The “One he loves” is Jesus! Since the Father loves the Son, and we abide (or remain in) the Son, we are loved and become his adopted sons.

Think about the Father/Son relationship for a moment. When the Father wants to leave something for his children, how does he do it? If we read on in Ephesians 1:13-14 it says, “…you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance…” Father’s will leave things for their children with an inheritance! According to Ephesians 1:14, the Holy Spirit was given to us as a “deposit” to guarantee our inheritance. A deposit is the equivalent of a promise. Jesus has promised to return for us because he left the Holy Spirit as a deposit.

When we read the rest of John 14:23 it says, “and we will come to him and make our home with him.” Not only did the Father and the Son leave us a deposit; they put that deposit within us in the form of the Holy Spirit! Ephesians 1:13 says, “Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit.” This seal is God’s signature of ownership and it has been stamped on our hearts when we make Jesus our King.

1 Peter 1:21
Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God.

There are two words in this passage that are very similar, “Believe” and “Faith”. If we look at this passage it the original Greek, these words are both derived from the same Greek word “Peitho” which means “to trust, have confidence, be confident.” To have faith in Jesus means to trust him as you would trust a parachute. Would you jump out of an airplane wearing a parachute if you didn’t trust that the parachute would save you? It’s easy to intellectually believe that a parachute could save someone because we’ve all seen how parachutes work. But when the parachute is strapped to your back as you stare thousands of feet down to earth, your intellectual belief of parachutes isn’t enough to jump out of the plane. It takes full confidence and trust! We need to trust Jesus with our life as we would trust a parachute with our life. We need to put on Jesus Christ and be confident in the jump to come.