This could be the most challenging key, but it is foundational to all our goals and dreams for 2019. Paul wrote, “Be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you” (Ephesians 4:32).
Forgiveness carries the most explosive power to launch us into a new season. Forgiveness allows us to leave the old and enter the new. Forgiveness releases the past. Unforgiveness holds onto the past. Regardless if 2018 was a good year or bad, the only way to face a new year is to let go of the past year.
When Christ forgave you and me, his forgiveness released us from our past. For many of us, the largest battle is forgiveness, and particularly forgiving ourselves. According to Paul, “This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun” (2 Cor. 5:17). Today you have a new life. You’re no longer held back by your past.
Jesus said, “When you forgive others, you release from your heart the negative thoughts that are there. If you don’t forgive others, you will retain the hurts and shame from things you’ve done or things that have happened to you” (John 20:21-23).
The key to realizing your dreams in 2019, is this: Your heart must be cleansed of negativity and sin by being filled with the positive power of forgiveness.
My friend Rafael pastors a thriving church in Florida. He grew up in Argentina in a dysfunctional home. We were playing golf (at least he was playing, I was hacking). We’d spent time together at conferences and meetings, but this was our first “man-time.” I asked him his story. He said, “My dad was a great guy, but he was a bad alcoholic who became more and more abusive. By the time I was twelve years old, my entire dream was to turn eighteen, beat up my dad, and leave the house.”
“What happened?” I asked as I picked up my fourth putt on number 6.
“I was invited to a youth meeting at a local church when I was sixteen. I gave my life to Jesus and it was explosive. Christ cleaned up my heart, made my thoughts new, and gave me a vision to become a successful man. It was a massive turnaround.”
“So you didn’t beat up your dad?”
“Ha, no. He didn’t change, but I changed. When I was eighteen, I told my dad I loved him, but I was leaving. I went to a Christian college, became a youth pastor, met my wife. Today, here we are living this amazing life helping others, building a tremendous church.”
“What happened with your family? Your brothers and sisters?”
“I have one brother. Man, he’s a mess.”
“How?”
“Well, he’s two years younger than me, so that makes him around forty-two now. But he’s just like my dad. He’s an alcoholic, he’s abusive, he’s angry and bitter. He’s been married a few times. He’s a total mess. It’s so strange that he would become what he hated.”
Standing on the tee of number 7, I reminded Rafael about Jesus’ words, that if we forgive someone, the hurt is released from our hearts, but if we don’t, it’s retained in our hearts. We become what’s in our hearts. His brother had held on to the negative.
Rafael was deep in the Word, but he had never seen it this way. Now he saw the pattern in his own family. His brother never forgave his dad, so his unforgiveness actually bound the sins of his father to himself. Rafael had forgiven his dad, released it from his heart, and lived a free, fulfilled life. Forgiveness releases; unforgiveness binds. We become what is retained in our hearts.
What Rafael learned and his life illustrates is: Forgiveness has massive power to build a great new year!
Maybe you have harbored the same feelings in your own heart. You can be free today. You don’t have TO live with your story framed by unforgiveness, bitterness, and pain. Until your heart is clean of the toxicity of dysfunction, you’ll never become what you were designed by God to be.
It may be your dad, might be an ex-business partner, or former wife or girlfriend. You’ve found yourself covered up with issues because you’re acting out what’s in your heart. Get rid of it. Get set free, forgive, and get released.
Some big, husky mountain man in Montana walked up to me on a Sunday morning at the close of the service. Big hands, strong handshake. “Thank you for yesterday,” he blurted.
“What happened yesterday?” We’d held a regional men’s conference, but I didn’t remember seeing him.
He said, “I didn’t know who my dad was until I was twenty years old. And I was always upset about it. When I did meet him when I was twenty, he looked me straight in the eye and said, ‘Get %*&# out of here. I don’t want anything to do with you or your momma.’ I’ve hated him for forty years. Every relationship in my life has been a mess. Yesterday, I discovered why. Unforgiveness.”
I shoved his shoulder. His eyes were getting misty, and he didn’t mask it. He put it all out there, straight up.
“Yesterday, for the first time in my life, I forgave my dad. And I meant it. I owned it, I dealt with it—and I forgave him. Today I woke up, and for the first time in my life, I felt like a free man. So, thanks.”
We hit each other again, shook hands, hugged. He turned and walked away. No chitchat. Done. Boom.
Free. You can be, too. Forgive.
Day Four: The Most Explosive Power
