The good news of Easter is this: Jesus died when His blood flowed out of Him on the Cross. When we put our faith in Him, His blood pours out over us, washing away our sin. As His blood flows through us, we are empowered to live His life. There truly is transforming power in the blood of Jesus!

Embracing Your Identity in Christ! One of the most significant gifts to us in Lifetime Guarantee is the list found in Chapter 5 detailing what the Scriptures says is now true of your new identity in Christ.

For the next hour I coached Tom through the Forgiveness Protocols wound by wound, person by person. The tears flowed as the chains of unforgiveness were broken and fell away. When we finished the last “Is the Holy Spirit bringing anything else to you now?” question, and he answered “no,” I asked him how he felt. He replied, “I feel so light I could fly! I feel like thousands of pounds of old chains are gone and I can breathe!”

Forgiving Forward exists to help people experience the freedom of the Gospel through the power of forgiveness. We believe that unforgiveness is one of the most significant hindrances to people experiencing the Life Jesus died to give us. God expects forgiven people to forgive others, but we find that most people who need to forgive need help doing that. One of the things that makes Forgiving Forward unique is our emphasis on equipping people to help others to forgive.

At the core of Cancel Culture is a demand for vengeance. “They must pay!” But that’s not our job. When we think we have to make someone pay for their failures, we are taking on something that is way beyond our paygrade. It is God’s job alone to settle all scores. While He has established governmental authorities to administer His justice, it is ultimately God who will execute His judgement, and He will do so with a perfect balance of justice and mercy. Our job is to trust Him and stay out of His way. We get out of His way by blessing those we are tempted to cancel.

In the course of the conversation I was able to coach him to forgive several deep wounds from his past. The transformation in his eyes and in his countenance was remarkable. I was then able to help him see himself the way God sees him and to coach him on how to love his wife even if she chooses to go through with the divorce.

Jesus viewed people as more important than their failures. He never treated His enemies as enemies. Jesus loves people and He hates sin, but His love for people is greater than His hatred is for their sin. In fact, He hates our sin so much that He died in order to separate us from our sin so He could restore us to relationship with Him and His Father. There is no sin that we can bring to Jesus to which He will say, “I didn’t cover that one.” He covered them all.

Sometimes God sets boundaries to protect us, yet other times he sets them to give us the opportunity to display our faith by honoring His authority. Humility is reflected in faithful submission to God. Pride makes us unfaithful. In The Four Cardinal Virtues, Josef Pieper wrote, “Pride refers to man’s relationship with God. Pride is the anti-realistic denial of the relationship between creature and Creator; pride denies the creaturely nature of man… It is a turning away from God.”

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.

Join us and resolve to navigate the transition into the New Year by focusing on Jesus and forgiving everything. We invite you to pray this with us each morning throughout 2021: "Lord, be our focus throughout every day so that we see Your hand in everything that we encounter. Jesus, because your Blood is enough for us, we choose now to forgive every wound we may suffer today."

We all have these people from our past who wounded us, sometimes severely. When it is a non-family member, it seems simple- just cut them out of your life and stuff the wound. You know, fugetaboutit! But when someone in your family hurts you, it’s a different story. Those wounds run deep! How do you enjoy (rather than endure) the holiday when you know that the offending party will show up?

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.

As Christ followers, we have infinite reasons to be thankful. Let me encourage you to shift your eyes away from the chaos of 2020 and instead focus on the truths that we are saved, sanctified, sealed, secured, and sustained by the blood of Jesus on the Cross and the power of the Holy Spirit for the glory of the Father.

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.”

Families and friendships are being shattered by the uncivil discourse of the political divide. It is safe to say that half the voters will be unhappy, some extremely so, with the outcome. It is inevitable. There are reports that extremists on both sides are threatening unrest and violence if their prospective candidate loses. As Christ followers, after we have voted, what is our response to be, regardless of the outcome? Here are four Biblical mindsets to consider in the aftermath of the election.

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?"

What if I'm able to forgive others, but I can't seem to forgive myself? Dr. Bruce and Toni Hebel answer this question and more in this video!

There are certain wounds that are more painful to endure and process than others. Adultery is the deepest form of betrayal within a marriage and leaves devastating wounds in the heart of the victimized spouse that makes forgiveness seem impossible. Conventional wisdom says that even if forgiveness is possible for an unfaithful spouse, recovering from it will take years. But conventional wisdom rarely considers the Cross.