The Inner Rot and Torment of Unforgiveness

When an animal is killed on a highway and the body is not cleaned up or dragged off into the woods by something, as often happens on secondary roads, driving through the area can be a pretty stomach-turning experience. The process of decay isn’t pretty, and the aroma it produces isn’t exactly something they typically bottle and sell at Dillard’s. Even after the body finally decays into an unrecognizable mess and the smell dissipates, the side of the road often bears the stain of its decomposition for a long time afterward, and a lot of people avoid even looking at it.

A similar process takes place in the human heart.

Unless tended to quickly, anger and wounded emotions can ripen into bitterness, which can then fester and putrefy into hatred. Anger, bitterness, and hatred are forms of spiritual death and decay. As a deer carcass rotting on the side of the road fills the immediate area with the stench of its decomposition, these destructive emotions and attitudes can quickly permeate an entire personality, to the point where everyone around the affected person can see and feel the results, even if they don’t know the cause (ever drive through a particular area, wrinkle your nose, and say “What died here?”).

The results of emotional death and decay are equally unmistakable. The longer it goes on, the worse it gets, the more thoroughly it permeates everything around it, and the more difficult it is to clean up completely. It leaves a stain on the personality that repels even the person who carries it. Who among us would take a rotting deer carcass home, sleep in the same room with it, bathe with it, tie it onto our backs and take it with us from place to place? The very idea is vomit-inducing. A person could not do such a thing and remain sane.

It’s little wonder then that wounded people so often hate themselves, engage in self-destructive behavior, tend to destroy all of their relationships (no matter how desperately they may want to love and be loved), and hate those around them who seem to be leading normal lives. They are walking tombs; they carry death and decay inside of themselves. It has come to saturate their every emotion, every reaction, and every thought process. Often, they are obsessed with death, pain, violence, the trappings of death, the occult and supernatural, spirits, death-related imagery, and wanting to die.

It’s little wonder that in the New Testament book of Ephesians, the Apostle Paul warns us: “Do not let the sun go down on your anger” (Ephesians 4:26). In other words, don’t let your anger fester; you can reach a point where it literally takes a miracle to set you free.

Yet, freedom is possible. Christ can deliver a person from anger, bitterness, and hatred, and can clean up the darkest heart, but he will not do so against our will. If you want to be free, you must determine to forgive all who have ever hurt you. The anger you feel toward those people is source of the problem, and as such it has to go, or it will just continue to poison you.

“But what they did to me was WRONG! It was TERRIBLE! I CAN'T forgive them!”

If this is your objection—and believe me, I understand it, as I’ve been deeply hurt by people myself and held on to that anger for a long time—you’re not understanding what I mean by ‘forgiveness’; what God means by it.

Forgiving a person does not mean that what they did to you was okay. It does not mean that they were right and you were wrong. It does not mean that you deserved what happened to you. It does not mean that you will forget what happened. It does not mean that you have to become their best friend or even speak to them again. It simply means that you cancel the debt they owe you. It’s just like tearing up an I.O.U. Think of what they did to you as a legal debt they owe you, like a large sum of money. Forgiving them is tearing up the bill, releasing them from your demand that they pay, that you be allowed vengeance on them. It means that you leave the question of payment, of vengeance, to God.

This is a decision, an act of the will, not a feeling, not an emotion. You may feel like killing them, and you can’t help the feeling, but what you choose to do is another matter. You can choose freedom, or you can choose to carry spiritual death and decay around in yourself until it saturates every area of your life, destroying you and those around you.

Adding to this, there are evil forces that will walk through what is essentially an open door in your life and do their best to see to it that you never get free; they will subject you to all manner of mental, emotional, and physical torment (see Matthew 18:21-36). In Ephesians 4, the Apostle Paul follows his admonition to “not let the sun go down on your anger,” with: “Do not give place to the devil” (Ephesians 4:27). The word “place” in this verse is translated from a Greek word that means ‘a particular, reserved, or marked-off place.’ Today, we would use such a word to designate something like a reserved parking spot. In other words, the New Testament warning is that festering anger in us sets aside a place in our lives for the devil to operate in us. It would be like giving him a room in your house, or an office in your building, for him to use as he sees fit, and as the Lord Jesus himself warned us in John 10:10, the devil comes only to “steal and kill and destroy.”

Is it any wonder then that so many who carry hatred and deep emotional wounds are also involved with the occult, obsessed with death, and seem to be caught up in the midst of perpetual ruin? It’s no coincidence.

If someone hurt you, what good do you do yourself by allowing what they did to continue to hurt you, to keep you from every good thing that might otherwise enter your life—even to allow evil spiritual forces to enter and control you? You’re not hurting the person who hurt you; you’re hurting yourself, but Christ can set you free if you’re willing to take the first step and make the decision to forgive.

Further, to become permanently free, make the decision to give your life to Christ, to make him Lord. Only by the Spirit of God in your life can you successfully overcome and be healed from the wounds of the past. Why give a place, room, or office space to the devil when you can give it to God instead? This doesn’t mean that you have to run right out and join a church, give up a bunch of money to some guy on TV with a $100 haircut, or live in a cave somewhere like a monk. It simply means that you give up control of your life to Christ and trust him to work out what is best for you as you follow him. Ask him to forgive you of every sin, to give you a new life, to cleanse and heal you, to lead you in the way you should go, to help you to overcome everything that has hurt you and held you back in the past, to give you hope and a future. Jesus came and died for us, in our place, taking the wrath of God for everything we have ever done wrong or ever will, in order to give us life, to provide for our deliverance and healing. When we come to him, turning away from our old life (what the Bible calls ‘repentance’), he takes our guilt and gives us his righteousness. His resurrection from the dead was not just a good way to end a tragic story; it’s the proof that God the Father accepted what he did on our behalf and will grant life to all who come to him and obey him.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” - Matthew 11:28-29

“If you will confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.” - Romans 10:9-10

“Because I live, you will live also.” - John 14:19

Maybe you want to take this step but you’re confused and conflicted, you don’t know what to say, how to start. Here’s a model prayer that will help you, if you’re sincere:

“God, I don’t really know what to say to you. I don’t know that I’m even sure that you’re there and listening to me. I’m talking to you because I know I can’t go on like this. I’m coming to you because you say you will help me. If what the Bible says about Jesus is the truth, if he is really your Son, if he died in my place and came back to life so that I could be reconciled with you, then I give you my life right now. Take it and be my Lord. Forgive me and wipe away all of my sins. And because I ask you to forgive me, I choose, as an act of my will, to forgive all of those who have hurt me, especially...[name the people and what they did to you] and I ask you to change my heart toward them however you will. I give them over to you. I ask you to heal me inside, to deliver me from the death and rottenness that have festered in my heart, and from any and all evil spirits that I have given a place to in my life. I take back those places and give them over to you. Take full possession of every part of me. Give me your Spirit with all of the gifts he brings, fill me with your peace, and teach me how to live for you.”

Don’t let your heart, mind, and emotions become just another lonely stretch of highway where something died and was left to rot. Give it to the one who can clean up anything, who can restore you, who can fill you with life and make you a blessing to the whole world.

“He who believes in me, just as the scriptures have said, out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water.” – John 7:38

Encouragement for Christians Struggling with Condemnation

"Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you..." - Jeremiah 1:5

"I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance." - Luke 5:32

"Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord or of me his prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel according to the power of God, who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity." - II Timothy 1:9

For some Christians, grace is a wonderfully simple concept to grasp and apply. They accept the substitutionary atonement of Christ and go on to live lives that are characterized by joy in their new-found identities in the Lord, confident that they are "a new creature" and "old things have passed away, all things have become new" (II Corinthians 5:17). They have failures in their Christian walk, but they move on quickly, not permitting these failures to hinder them.

For others, however--and particularly for those given to introspection--the matter is not quite so simple. The beginning of their new birth experience may indeed be a joyous time for them, but as they learn more of the Word, come to follow Christ more closely, and reflect on the character of God, the remaining darkness within them becomes more evident, even frightening and intimidating. In their struggles with the world, the flesh, and the devil, they come to truly appreciate what is meant when the scriptures declare that God dwells in "unapproachable light" (I Timothy 6:16) and is one in whom "there is no darkness at all" (1 John 1:5).

For such as these, every failure and character flaw can seem like an indicator of absolute unworthiness and wretchedness, bringing about a continual sense of shame and futility. They feel as if they'll never "get it right," never be pleasing to the Lord, never be able to live the Christian life as it is meant to be lived and as the heroes of the faith lived. They know who they were when Christ found them, and just how ugly they can be. They have a keen recollection of their personal history of sin, and can lay hold of it to produce an example of their wretchedness at a moment's notice. Although they might be hesitant to admit it, on some level they suspect that, rather than loving them, God merely tolerates them, and that He is keeping a detailed list of their failures in order to throw the book at them on Judgment Day. For these, the Christian walk is something akin to torture, a long walk on what they fear is surely Death Row. The ever-observant enemy then seizes on these feelings and uses them to keep such believers bound in a perpetual gloom of condemnation and despair.

If you find yourself in this latter camp, I would like to encourage you with a few thoughts, which, if you take hold of them, can be transformative for you, as they proving to be in my own life.

Before you were born, God knew you (Psalm 139:13, Jeremiah 1:5). He knew the very worst about you, all of the ugliness that you are capable of and all of the evil you would ever commit. There is no darkness in you that He did not see from the very beginning (Psalm 139:12, Hebrews 4:13). Yet, He loved you (John 3:16, Ephesians 2:1-10). When you came to Him, He washed you with His own Son's blood, the most precious substance there is, and He did not purchase you at such great cost in order to rub your nose in your sins or to throw you away (Matthew 26:27-28, Revelation 1:5-6). His plan is to bring you to glory, to make you like the Lord Jesus (Romans 8:29, Hebrews 2:10). Yes, He will convict you of sin, not to condemn, belittle, or discourage you, but to help you overcome it (Hebrews 12:11-13). When you fail, you do not shock God. You're not presenting Him with something He didn't anticipate. It's not like He sits back and says to Himself, "Wow, what a loser. I didn't see that coming." Give the Almighty a little more credit than that. He knew what He was getting into when He touched you and said, "Follow Me" - and He still did it. When He shines the light of His Word and His Spirit on something dark in you, it's not because He wasn't aware of it. He knew it was there all along; He simply wants to bring it to your attention so that you can deal with it in the confidence of 1 John 1:9 - that if you acknowledge your sin to Him, He is "faithful and just to forgive...and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

Yes, He knew you--everything about you--before you knew Him, and He still drew you to Himself. He is not your enemy. Don't turn away from Him; turn *to* Him, confident of His favor toward you in Christ. Don't be afraid of the Lord's correction, for it comes to build you up. So let conviction come, and strive to do better with the Holy Spirit's guidance (I Peter 1:1-10). And during those times when you feel accusation, shame, and condemnation coming down upon you, remember that these do not come from your Father, who only seeks to build you up in love, but from the enemy who seeks to tear you down (I Peter 5:6-10, Revelation 12:10). Pay heed to conviction, but not to condemnation. Rest securely in the Father's love for you. 

"For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need." - Hebrews 4:15-16

The following is an excellent message on this topic by the late Derek Prince:

* All scripture references are taken from the New American Standard Bible