Another verse that will go hand-in-hand with the above verse is one that we keep quoting in some of our other articles, but again, it is worth repeating for this article. Once again, here it is: “AND WHENEVER YOU STAND PRAYING, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses. But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses.” (Mark 11:25) Notice this verse starts out with the key words “And whenever you stand praying.” Not only does this verse give us a very dire warning that God will not forgive our own trespasses if we do not forgive what others have done to us, but it adds one more thing in it that we may not even be able to get any of our own personal prayers answered with God since it starts out with the specific words, “And whenever you stand praying.” Get your prayer life shut down with the Lord, and you will get your whole walk and your whole divine destiny completely shut down with Him as well until you can learn how to abide by this specific command from the Lord. This is a very serious statement being made by the Lord to all of us and is nothing to mess around with if you have every intention on wanting to fully complete your divine destiny with the Lord in this lifetime.
Again, life is just way too short to be constantly thinking about all of the negatives of your past, especially if some of the sins of your past or other are past have already been fully forgiven by the Lord. This is why I have named the title of this article, “Forgive and Forget.” Not only must you fully forgive both yourself and others for their past sins and mistakes, but you must also learn how to forget them, which means to let these past sins go and not keep thinking about or keep bringing it back up and throwing it back in other people’s faces. As I said at the top of this article, I have seen many married couples do this with one another over the years and it really causes a lot of stress and strife in the marriage as a result. The above verse from the Lord on how He will not remember any of our past sins that have been fully forgiven is really a major piece of revelation, and it is something that every Christian should try and do as best they can with both themselves, those who are close to them, and any strangers who may have hurt them in the past. If any of you are still having a hard time in letting go of some of your past sins due to the guilt that you may still have with some of them, or due to the seriousness of the actual sin itself, just ask God in prayer to help you get a grip on this and break this kind of stronghold off of you by the power of the Holy Spirit. God will do this for you if you will just simply ask Him in prayer.
I know some Christians may have a hard time in doing both forgiving and forgetting on some of their past sins or the sins of those who may be close to them. If you have just caught your spouse cheating on you in your marriage and they are really sorry for it and have gone before the Lord to both confess and repent of this sin, it may take a while for you to both fully forgive and fully forget this kind of heavier transgression, since the sin of adultery cuts right into the heart, love and trust of a marriage. But over time, with the help of the Holy Spirit, you will be able to fully forgive your spouse if they are truly sorry for it and are truly remorseful for doing this to you. Wounds can be healed by the Lord and marriages can be fully restored if both people will work with the Lord during the healing process. I have seen the Lord fully heal and fully restore many marriages where one of the spouses was caught cheating on the other. This same principle will also apply to what others outside the marriage may have done to you such as a drunk driver killing one of your family members. These kinds of heavier trespasses against you will not be easily forgiven and forgotten at the outset. But again, over time, the Lord can help heal your wounds and show you how to fully forgive these kinds of people so you can get on with the rest of your life and complete what He has in store for you.
For those of you who may be still having a very hard time in forgiving and forgetting some of these heavier kinds of trespasses against you, we have a very special article that will show you how to deal with this. The title of this article is, “How to Handle Negative Feelings” When Wronged by Someone Else.” I will now leave you with two more good verses that will add more to the above two verses. Both of these verses have to do with learning how to let fully go of our past, which will include all of our past sins and transgressions that were made against the Lord. Here they are: 1. But Jesus said to him, “No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9:62) 2. “Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, FORGETTING those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead. I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:12)
These two verses by Jesus and Paul perfectly say it all. The first verse from Jesus is Him flat out telling us that we are not fit for His kingdom if we keep looking back and dwelling on our past. The sooner you can let go of your past and all of the sins in it, the sooner you can enter into your true calling with the Lord and complete all of the divine missions and assignments that He has in store for you in this life. Stay bound up in your past, which will include not being able to let go of some of your past sins, and you will stay stuck and grounded in your divine destiny with the Lord until you can learn how to get those heavy chains broken off of you. Notice that Paul uses the specific words in the second verse above of “FORGETTING those things which are behind.” Again, this is why I have used both the words of forgiving and forgetting in the title of this article. Once you have properly dealt with those past sins with the Lord, then you can fully let them go and move on with the rest of your life.
Again, I have seen too many Christians over the years continue to wallow in the sins of either their past or some of their loved one’s past and most of them have ended up totally miserable and completely shut down in their personal walks with the Lord as a result. This should not be happening to any Christian since we all have the power of the Holy Spirit on the inside of us to help us get a grip on this kind of a problem and get it broken off of our backs. As we have showed you in our other articles, God will eventually be evening out all of the scores and that will include anyone who has seriously trespassed against you in this life. Vengeance belongs to the Lord, not to us. Every believer and nonbeliever will eventually be coming before the Lord for a final judgment and any unconfessed sins and trespasses will thus be coming before Him at which time He will then appropriately and justly deal with them.
As a result, we can let all of our confessed and forgiven sins fully go not only for ourselves, but for all of those who are close to us in this life. We do not need to keep bringing up those past sins and mistakes and disrupting the unity and harmony of our households and our personal friendships. Again, if God is willing to let all of our past, forgiven sins fully go to the point that He will no longer want to remember any of them then we need to do likewise with both ourselves, our family and friends, and any strangers who may have hurt us in the past.
Dr. Lewis Akpogena
08055059656
E-mail: akpogena@yahoo.com
