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Kingdom ways
Transformation Series
Lesson 16: The Central Power and Necessity of Forgiveness, part 3
How Do We Deal With The Past?
Many people confusedly think that they have to go back and find whoever the person or event was that
predicated the root of sin and talk it out. This is not even possible if that person has died. It may not only be
unnecessary to talk to the person in question, but also hurtful. Whoever hurt us may be unaware, or if they are
aware thought it long ago forgotten and one with. Forgiveness can be accomplished purely within the
hidden heart of the believer. It may be that the Holy Spirit will later prompt you to take part in a present
day talk and reconciliation, but this should only be done with wisdom and tact. It is not always
necessary.
When parents were normal and good, it is strangely more difficult to get at roots than when parents were
recognizably evil. Resentments in the latter case are easily seen and admitted consciously. But loyalty masks
the other, both in childhood and as a grown believer desiring transformation. Here again, the straight, clean
logic of the Word enables us to act on faith, disregarding feelings.
Frequently, resentments lie totally beneath both the heart and mind, having originated so early that we
sometimes cannot remember, or from reactions to things left undone by those who ought to have done them
for us. Sometimes parents have almost never done anything demonstrably evil, and yet have almost failed as
parents. One instance occurs in homes in which parents were God- fearing, moral, upstanding, dutiful people,
but they never touched the children with affection. The childrens minds and hearts could not know was lacking
and remembered only the good things the parents did. But their spirits ached for touch and resented its lack.
Now the adult cannot give love, and the family is starving. Perhaps the mate is unfaithful. Bad fruit evidence
the bitter root. Prayer for forgiveness brings deliverance where no resentments have ever been consciously
felt.
Another example which is most tragic is that of people whose parents not only did almost everything
correctly, but they also gave bountiful affection; yet they failed miserably as parents. Why? Because they did
not know how to give the child space to be his own person. They so overdid things that they snuffed
out the budding life of the child. Such children as adults may have extreme difficulty seeing resentment as a
base in their hearts in their present difficulties. Again the present fruit of a fearful, squashed life reveals the
presence of a bad root of resentment in the spirit of the child. Repentance, confession, and release must
be solely by faith according to the Word of God.
Events are not what we are primarily concerned about. Horrendous events may not score deeply in the heart
at all, depending on Gods grace. Slightest happenings may leave scars and resultant practices that wreck
relationships from then on. What is important is the hearts reaction. Sometimes reactions are nit
apparent immediately, exploding later, much like a bomb with a delayed fuse.
Forgiveness concerning events may not yet accomplish deliverance. Reactions to events in childhood
cause behaviour adaptations, which become habits and practices in the flesh. Those behaviour
patterns, once firmly structured into the soul, are not easily dealt with. For example, we may react to coldness
on the part of parents and build into ourselves the patterns of withdrawal, the stony heart, the habits of taking
vengeance, and all the other writhing tentacles of the octopus of self. We should be more concerned about the
practices in the flesh (Col.3:9) than the vents from which they are built. Just forgiving our parents will not
set us free. We must also bring death through repentance to the consequent sinful practices.
It was said earlier that if bad fruit persist, forgiveness is not yet accomplished. A person may, however, fully
forgive the one who initially wounded and yet retain a destructive resulting practice. That practice is also
dismantled (or transformed) by the cross and forgiveness. When a person has forgiven another, he yet has
himself to forgive. We cannot allow the destruction of our inner practices until forgiveness of self restores
capacity to trust and to let go. Death of self is predicated upon and made possible only by the fullness of
forgiveness. We cannot stand to be crucified with Him so long as we continue to blame and chastise ourselves
and try to be different. Death of that striving to set things straight is built upon fullness of forgiveness, in which
we cease to attack ourselves.

Forgiveness brings us to rest. The blood of Jesus washes away the striving s of guilt precisely so that the
structures of habit can be let go to death. If you have prayed for the death of your sin and guilt on the cross
many times, and yet that old pattern of sin continues to operate, there is a need to return to base one
and examine whether fullness or forgiveness of self and God has in fact been accomplished.
The only route to the cross is through Gethsemane which is when we identify our sin and wrestle our
emotions away from attachment to the old way. Otherwise we still, in effect, snatch our old way off the cross
before He cries out, It is finished. Forgiveness happens before death, even as Jesus first petitioned, Father,
forgive them, hours before He was ready to proclaim once and for all, It is finished. Fullness of
forgiveness prepares us for happy, easy, deathlike letting go of a feather in gentle wind. Without
fullness of forgiveness, we put a practice on the cross, only to discover it still stuck on the hand, glued there by
unforgiveness of self and God. Without fullness of forgiveness, the work of sanctification and transformation is
heavy and sweaty. But forgiveness makes it light and easy.

Two-Part Transformation
Transformation has two parts. The blood of Jesus washes the heart clean, but the blood will not destroy the
works of darkness in the soul (1Jn.3:8). Only the cross can do that. Forgiveness is central, but it only begins
the process. The work of transformation is a daily struggle from then on to crucify the self.
Some ongoing aspects of forgiveness can continue to influence and enhance that transformation. Pray that
God will bless those who wounded or failed you (Rom. 12:14-21; 1Pet. 3:8-14). Minister to others in like
difficulties; as you will see yourself more clearly, and love will overflow your own desert places.
Most especially, pray in thanksgiving for everything in the past. As you pray with thanksgiving, your heart
will be changed from a stance of self-pity and anger to glorying in what God has accomplished in and through
all.
Forgiveness is not complete until God the Father is included. Scripture says, The foolishness of man
subverts his way, and his heart rages against the Lord (Pro. 19:3). Note again that word heart. The mind
protests, How could I ever be angry at God? Hes so perfect. He never did anything to me. But thats not
what the heart says. The hearts perversely cries out, Oh, yeah, if You were a good Father, You wouldnt have
let me fall this far! Or in the case of people wounded in early childhood, in the womb, or at birth, You sent me
to serve You, and then You let me get so messed up by these people. Now how do You expect me to serve You?
It isnt fair! Or, Where were You when I needed You? Or, Why me, God? and so on, the hearts cries being as
infinite as the problems we get into.
For that reason Job cried out, Neither is there any daysman betwixt us, that might lay his hand upon us
both (Job 9:33, KJV). A daysman was the same as a prayer minister in Bible times. Men went such a man to
settle disputes, as when the two women made King Solomon their daysman in their dispute over whose the
baby was ( 1Kings 3:16-28). Such prayer minister, or daysman, talked to both parties, reasoned with them, and
having settled the dispute, laid his hands on both their shoulders and drew them together for forgiveness. Jobs
cry calls for our Lord Jesus Christ to become our daysman betwixt God and man. And that is what 2 Corinthians
5:18-20 says He is, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself . observe in the last
phrase of quote , St. Paul speaks of our being reconciled to God, not the other way around. We need to be
reconciled to God because we are angry with Him. In the next phrase the Holy Spirit as[peaks of His forgiving
us : not counting their trespasses against them. That is the function of the daysman, to lay his hand on each
and so make mutual forgiveness and peace. Jesus is our daysman. Through Him, we are to enable forgiveness
between God and man, both ways.