The blood of Jesus covers all sins including the ones committed against me and true forgiveness is applying the blood of Jesus as payment in full for every wound I ever have or will suffer. Oftentimes we get confused because we categorize offenses. It's a business offense. It's a personal offense. It's a family offense. It's a neighborhood offense. So we've got clusters of categories of offenses, but really offenses are offenses!

When we devalue the blood of Jesus and the sacrifice of Christ that He paid for for us, the Father is not okay with that. He gives authority for us to be tormented, which literally means that demonic forces have authority to torment us. We've got this tormenting spirit in our life competing with the Holy Spirit so we can't really hear the Holy Spirit because these tormentors are there under the authority of the Father to fight us. I'm convinced you cannot fully abide in Christ effectively when you have unforgiveness in your heart because there's a competition involved.

I jokingly often say the only people who don't need what we teach are the ones who've never been wounded. So if you've been wounded, you probably have a forgiveness struggle, because when we get hurt we want people to pay. Somebody has got to make it right. It's so hard for people to grab a hold of that. I also think there's a lot of confusion that circles around what forgiveness is and what it isn't. We've addressed that in other questions that we've answered in other ways, but forgiveness is basically applying the blood of Jesus as payment in full for every wound I ever have or will suffer. It's recognizing that the debt that was incurred by the wound has already been paid.

The moment we forgive, the discipline ends because God's discipline for us is not punishment. It is there to bring us to rethink, to change our mind, to get us to a new understanding of the blood of Jesus and how it covers our sin. When we honor the blood by applying it to what has wounded us, then the reason for the torment is over. The discipline is gone.

Well, my responsibility is to own my sin, basically to recognize the wounding and the pain that I've inflicted upon someone and own it and change my mind about it. Repentance. When you talk about reconciliation, you have to have both forgiveness and repentance. Repentance does not mean to change your behavior. It means to change your mind, which will ultimately change your behavior. Repentance is metanoia: to change your mind. So my responsibility is to recognize and confess what I did was wrong, confess it to God, and then go see what I can do to make it right. There's a passage where Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew 5 says, "If therefore, you are offering your gift on the altar and you remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother, then come and offer your gift.”

What are the Protocols of Forgiveness? Why do we call them protocols rather than steps? What do they actually mean? Forgiveness is not a process, it's a transaction.

Dr. Bruce and Toni Hebel of Forgiving Forward answer the age old question, "Do deeper wounds take longer to heal?"

Sometimes we find ourselves angry, bitter, and upset without really understanding why. The answer, according to scripture, is oftentimes because we are harboring unforgiveness in our hearts. Toni and I wanted to share some of our story and how it manifested in our lives with you, in the hopes that you could learn to recognize unforgiveness, and in turn choose to forgive immediately - leading to a lifetime of joy and peace, no matter the circumstances.

Forgiveness is a transaction. It's receiving the blood of Jesus as payment in full for every wound I ever have or ever will suffer.

As we have seen the power of these principles worked out in our own lives, God has given us the opportunity to come alongside many other wounded pastors, ministry leaders, and people in all walks of life who are in torment because of unforgiveness. We have witnessed significant supernatural breakthroughs, and have found incredible joy in helping others forgive.

I think the main thing that people struggle with when they think about forgiving is the issue of justice. We hear it all the time: “There’s no justice, no peace.” Because there’s a concern that the person who wounded me needs to pay. There’s a debt that incurred because of that wound.

If you really want to know that you have forgiven, you bless them. If you cannot bless someone, you haven’t forgiven. Because blessing means I no longer want them to pay. Because Jesus has already paid! I want them to be blessed, because it is the kindness of God that brings us to repentance. So the way that you know you’ve forgiven is that yo’ve specifically dealt with the wounds and you’ve chosen to bless the person that inflicted them.