Are you harboring hurt and unforgiveness that you just can’t seem to shake?
What if you knew that your resentment was actually causing you to feel tormented, but you didn’t know why?
Bruce Wilkinson uncovers the seven stages of unforgiveness that ravage our lives.
1. Unforgiveness
2. Anger
3. Bitterness
4. Slander
5. Resentment
6. Hatred
7. Vengeance
Unforgiveness does not lie dormant, it grows and wreaks havoc. Harboring unforgiveness has been proven to elicit harmful effects physically as well. Bruce asked a psychiatrist out of all the people in psychiatric institutions, what percentage of them would be cured by forgiveness.
“Without hesitation, he said, if the people in there would forgive, 60-80% of them would be healed and could leave.”
Can forgiveness really heal us physically?
“People don’t really understand that unforgiveness is an infection in the soul. Your soul becomes sick and eventually it wants to protect itself from anybody else hurting it, so it builds walls around your heart to keep others out.”
Unfortunately, while the walls keep others out, it also keeps the unforgiveness in, and it festers.
“It’s you, it’s your heart getting hard, shriveling up, not dealing emotions, feeling anxiety all the time”
When we harbor resentment, our souls are tormented.
“That’s why so many Christians don’t understand why God says no to their prayers, because they’re praying for the torment to end, not understanding the reason that the torment is there is because of unforgiveness.”
Bruce says that if we are harboring unforgiveness in our hearts, it counteracts spiritual disciplines like prayer, fasting, and Bible reading.
“All of the Christian service, all the trying, it won’t work if you have unforgiveness.”
God allows us to be tormented in some way, shape, or form because he wants us to turn from our unforgiveness which leaches life from us.
Dr. Bruce Wilkinson is an international ministry leader and the #1 New York Times bestselling author of over sixty books, including The Prayer of Jabez.
Key Scripture: Matthew 18
Featured Songs: Freedom Song – Christy Nockels; Something Beautiful – Need to Breathe; Deeper – Meredith Andrews
The freedom factor
