We met Marike Veldman in Jerusalem in March 2017! Her story is a powerful one of choosing to believe God's promises and forgive in the midst of a crisis!

I love the fact that the Bible is alive, that you can know a passage well and still continually learn deep truths from it. That happened to me recently with Isaiah 55. I was reading Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers by Dane Ortlund. In this intriguing book, the author helps us consider more deeply what Scripture reveals to us about Jesus’ heart, who really is at His core the Son of God, based on what Jesus said about Himself in Matthew 11:28-30.

Victor Marx hosts Bruce Wayne Hebel, author of Forgiving Forward: Unleashing the Forgiveness Revolution. Bruce shares his deliverance from torment due to unforgiveness over “horrific wounds” suffered at a church he pastored. He and his wife now help others get free through his book and “Forgiving Forward” course. If you’re experiencing issues with anxiety, depression, addiction or anger — or know someone who is — unforgiveness may be at the root, so be sure to tune in!

Brad and Molly came to us in crisis. Three weeks earlier Molly had discovered Brad’s pornography addiction and his multiple affairs, including Molly’s best friend, Brad’s best friend’s wife and prostitutes. She was shocked. A couple of days after the initial confrontation, Brad picked up his Bible. As he began to read something inside him broke. For two hours he tearfully read the Bible and, for the first time, understood the grace of God and the forgiveness provided for him through the blood of the cross. He was dramatically transformed. Heart cleansed. Desires changed.

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!

The key is not our activity, the key is our focus. Andrew Murray said, “When Christ becomes our focus, everything changes.” By focusing on the presence of Jesus, our lives begin to reflect our new and true identity as He lives out in us what He had made us to be. We no longer work for God, God works through us. (Philippians 2:13) This may or may not change our activity level, but it will, however, change our effectiveness and stress level. Taylor later wrote to his sister, “As to work – mine was never so plentiful, so responsible or so difficult, but the weight and strain are all gone.”

When we are faced with sorrow, grief, uncertainty, suffering, and pain, the way to respond that is most fitting for a disciple of Jesus is to surrender to His will and to die to ours. Jesus is showing us how to agree to His plan and give up ours. When I yield and pray, “Father, glorify Your name in and through me in this situation. Reveal Yourself. Lord let me see You.” I experience peace amidst the sorrow. I find myself filled with strength and hope knowing that God will glorify Himself in my life.

God is constantly challenging me in my areas of unbelief. That’s how we grow: by faith we grow in faith! “…for in it (the Gospel) the righteousness of God is revealed from faith the faith, as it is written, ‘the righteous man shall live by faith.’” (Romans 1:17). When we put our trust in Jesus by believing that His death and resurrection covered our sin and restored us to life with God, we are secure in Him. As we walk with Him, our faith is constantly growing as we learn to know Him more intimately. Our faith deepens as He transforms our minds, sometimes with a Gibbs Slap, to conform us into His mind and His image.

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?