Last Friday was incredible, but I wanted to wait to tell you about it until after this Friday’s Bible Study. God is so good and faithful. He is doing incredible transformation work in the lives of these ladies. I would like for you to pray with me for these precious ladies.
Friday, January 23
Last Friday, my co-teacher, Sandy, taught us about forgiveness through Jesus’ life. Her lesson focused on Christ Jesus forgiving those who put Him on the cross because they were motivated by evil and did not know what they were doing. He had to forgive because His Father said to forgive, so if He was never to sin, He had to forgive before He died. What an incredible revelation. She explained how sin separates us from God and why we need His forgiveness and how Jesus’ death paid the punishment for all our sins. And those that hurt us were also motivated by evil and we need to forgive them, not that they are excused for what they did but that the power of the hurtful memory would no longer control our minds.
MJ kept asking, “How do I forgive.” Sandy explained that because Jesus forgave, He can help us forgive as we receive His forgiveness for our sins. MJ still insisted on knowing how to forgive. I was sitting next to her and knew that the memories of the abuse were beginning to take over her mind. She began to cry and recount the experiences. I took over and put up on the board the following outline for how to forgive.
FORGIVENESS PROCESS
- Identify the hurtful memory. In Shattering Your Strongholds, Liberty Savard advised you not to replay your inner tapes of anger and guilt over painful memories, failures, humiliations, and the sins of others against you. So, forgive those who have hurt you, including yourself if necessary, and verbally put off the power those memories have on your mind and emotions.
- Ask God to help you forgive the people involved.
- Forgive the people who hurt you in the memory to break the power they have over your thoughts and emotions.
- Ask God to remove all oppressive spirits from the memory so the memory does not control your thoughts, emotions, and decisions.
- Ask God to forgive your unloving response to the hurtful actions done against you.
- Ask God to show you the unhealthy or false beliefs that the hurtful situation generated. It could be a false belief about yourself, the other person, or even God. Then transform those wrong beliefs using God’s truth.
- Find something to be thankful for about the situation or person.
Pray something like the following when you become offended:
I forgive (person’s name) for _(offense)_ and I release the resentment and the power it has over me in Jesus’ name. Lord, remove any attached oppressive spirits to the resentment. Fill me with Your love and grace. Forgive me for being unforgiving, unkind, or impatient. I put on and bind to my mind that I can forgive and be free because Jesus Christ helps me and sets me free as I submit to Him. (List other truths you can claim.)
As I explained the process of becoming free from painful memories, MJ was really crying, so I asked that the girls gather around her to pray. I asked MJ if she wanted to be free from the pain and she said “yes.” I laid my hand on her head and began to pray for her, I asked her to verbally say, “I forgive.” Sandy asked her to say it a few more times. I prayed for the oppressive spirits attached to her painful memories to be gone from her in Jesus’ name. She coughed several times and choked and then a calm came over her as I prayed for peace and joy to enter her heart. Other girls were crying as they forgave those who hurt them. MJ became calm. I continued my lesson and explained that oppressive spirits are attached through the wounds of our souls, and they keep us oppressed through painful memories. I also explained that being thankful for something about the situation transforms the painful memory. Being thankful is the hardest part of transforming a memory.
Friday, January 27
What a change in MJ when she came in tonight. She was unable to forgive, but after the deliverance, she later wrote down all the people who hurt her and what they did then wrote forgiven next to the incident. She then crumpled up the papers and flushed them down the toilet and submitted all her painful memories to the Lord. She then prayed like she never prayed before and felt a huge weight lift off her. Praise the Lord.
She had a problem retaliating against people who crossed her, which is why she is in jail. She retaliated against an inmate and knew she would get punished for it. At that point, she knew she had to forgive and went through the forgiveness process described above. When she was called to the superintendent’s office, she thought she was getting in big trouble for what she did, but she only got a warning. What surprised her was that she was crying tears of shame and repentance for what she did. Praise the Lord.
Sandy taught about the love of our Heavenly Father. Though we may feel abandoned, God does not abandon us. She started off by having the girls read Psalm 142. We can call on God at any time and He will hear us and help us. She shared her testimony of how she was sick for 15 years and could not eat except to drink carrot juice and was very weak. She had little children that had to take care of themselves and her, and her husband had to carry her up and down the stairs. She was ready to die and wanted to die. One of the inmates, who is not a Christian, amazed us and asked if that was a sin to want to die. Sandy said yes, and she had to repent and ask God to show her why she was so sick. To make a long story short, God showed her it was because she felt unloved and abandoned by her parents and she felt God didn’t love her and had abandoned her. She asked for forgiveness and went through a prayer of deliverance from the devil’s oppression and released the spirit of abandonment, and she was instantly healed.
I gave MJ a copy of my book, Hope for Complete Healing to help her transform other painful memories. If you have painful memories, you can find this book on my website, just click on the title of my book. Thank you for your continued prayers. I will continue teaching out of the study booklet called Living a Victorious Life. Every inmate gets one of these booklets. Please pray that the truths in this teaching material would transform the lives of the inmates.
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Check out my latest book Breaking Mental Strongholds which you can order on Amazon. To learn more about it, read my post called Breaking Mental Strongholds Book.
Also, check out Fighting Unseen Battles on Amazon. To learn more about this book, read: How to Fight Unseen Battles.
Contact me at hopeforcompletehealing@gmail.com, and ask for a PDF of Eight Life-changing Prayers from the Bible. The prayers are for the Spirit of wisdom, renewal, spiritual strength, knowledge of His will, virtues of God, non-believers, 23rd Psalm, and victory. I will also send you the Lord’s Prayer Model to pray effectively. Please leave your name, so I know you are a real person making the request.
Hope for Complete Healing 