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.

Small Group Recap
Last Wednesday we talked about “Extreme Forgiveness”. The passage was Luke 6:27-38 when Jesus was saying things like “love your enemies”, “do good to those who hate you”, “bless those who curse you”, “pray for those who mistreat you”, “do not judge”, and “do not condemn”. In group, we talked about the difference between the world’s standard and God’s standard. We looked at why it’s difficult to obey Jesus’ commands and why it’s so easy to do what the world says we should do. We also talked about how forgiveness benefits both the forgiver the person who is being forgiven. At the end of group, we broke up into guys and girls and prayed for each other.

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

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

The passage for Wednesday was John 8:1-11 (the woman caught in that act of adultery). We talked about the importance of forgiveness and how it impacts the offender and the offended. At the end of group, I covered the Integrated Model of Healing found in John Wimber’s book, Power Healing. I have summarized this model below. The next memory verse is 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.”

Integrated Model of Healing

1) God wants to heal the sick today
It is in God’s nature to heal. In John 5 Jesus was accused of healing on the Sabbath and Jesus said to his accusers, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working.” (v. 17) According to Jesus, God is still working to this VERY DAY. God didn’t stop working after he created the Earth. Jesus continues to say, “he [Jesus] can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.” (v. 19) So what was Jesus doing? He was healing! So if Jesus does only what he sees the Father doing (healing), and the Father is at work to this very day, then God wants to heal the sick today.

2) The importance of corporate ministry
We are not just individually saved from hell, we are saved into a larger body of people. As a member of this body, we all play an important part. In 1 Peter 4:10 it says, “Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms.” We are given gifts not for our benefit, but for the benefit of others. The Holy Spirit dispenses these gifts to us and we need to faithfully use them to benefit others.

3) Our trust in God is demonstrated by action
We are called to pray! In Matthew 7:7 it says, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” Through our faith comes a dependence on God to provide for everything. We should be bold and seek God. In 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 it says, “Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”

4) Empowered by the Holy Spirit
God’s power, not human power, is the source of all divine healing. Jesus said in John 14:12,14, “I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these…You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.” Do you see the partnership? Our faith in Jesus Christ will lead to doing great things, but ultimately the power to do those great things does not come from us. Jesus “will do it” through us by the power of the Holy Spirit.

5) The importance of loving relationships with our brothers and sisters
One of the benefits of being in a body of believers is the support we get from our brothers and sisters. We are to be committed to each other and keeping each other accountable. The enemy, Satan, is constantly looking for ways to isolate and destroy us. In Galatians 6:1-2 it says, “Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted. Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.”

6) God wants to heal the whole person, not just specific conditions
As humans, we are an integrated union of body, mind, and spirit. To give you an example, when you hit your thumb with a hammer, you are not just physically hurt you become mentally distressed. Another example, let’s say you’re nervous about something, you will have butterflies in your stomach and you palms might sweat. Finally, if someone is being spiritually attacked it can manifest itself in mental and physical disorders. When one part of the union is affected, it can impact the other two because they’re all connected. When we pray for the sick, we need to keep ourselves open to the possibility than a physical ailment might have a mental or spiritual cause. We can pray more effectively for healing when we understand the bigger picture. When we pray, we should ask God to give us words of knowledge about the person. God can use the person who is praying to speak words that will unlock suppressed memories that might be affecting them physically and spiritually. The end result is healing that affects the whole person, not just the symptom. When Jesus healed someone on the Sabbath he said to his accusers in John 7:23, “…why are you angry with me for healing the whole man on the Sabbath?”

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