"Increase our Faith!!"
There is a lot of teaching about faith these days that has little to do with Biblical Faith. One such teaching is that the increase in faith will bring you health and prosperity whereas the lack of faith is the cause for all of your ills. For the child of God who has placed his/her faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, nothing could be further from the truth. The truth of the gospel is that not matter what happens in your life, you are an 'heir of God and a joint-heir with Christ." (Romans 8). With that said, there is only one passage, as far as I know up to this point in my studies, where the Apostles of Jesus asked God to increase their faith, and it was tied into Christ's teachings on forgiving others:
“If your brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them; and if they repent, forgive them. 4 Even if they sin against you seven times in a day and seven times come back to you saying ‘I repent,’ you must forgive them.”
5 The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” (Luke 17)
Forgiving others is something God says, "we must do." Jesus tells us here that we are not to forgive just one offense, which we have a hard enough time doing, but he says that if there are seven offenses in just one day, "we must forgive." The apostles were wise enough to know that this is not something they could do in their own strength, so they cried out to God for an increase in faith; in other words, they knew it was something only God could do for them. I have struggled with the inability to forgive others, and I have counseled folks who were stuck because of resentment. Like the apostles, I have found that this is something that I can not do in my own strength. Forgiveness is the heart of Gospel of Jesus Christ. We have complete forgiveness because of what Jesus has done for us on the cross. Thus, a practical application of the Gospel and applying the work of Christ's Cross is needed to come to the place of rest, peace and forgiveness.
Law Vs. Grace
If one approaches Jesus command to forgive as a law that must be obeyed or God will punish them or "not bless them", they will be stuck. It will produce guilt or it will produce the need to prove how the offender does not deserve forgiveness. This will end with hate and resentment that will usually be denied. All of this denial or justifying will be harmful to the offended person, and this is exactly why Jesus says we "must forgive." It is out of love Jesus tells us "we must." It is for our own good and for the good of everyone around us. Research suggests that anger turned inward, resentment and bitterness causes health problems, depression and anxiety. So, knowing God loves us and wants what is best, and will continue to love us whether or not we forgive, is the starting point. It is applying the Gospel. Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ including our sin of unforgiveness because all sin was dealt with at the Cross. So, how do we apply the Gospel of Jesus Christ when their is a battle raging inside of us?
Fact VS. Feeling
Our feelings of hurt are real and often quite raw. According to Isaiah 9, God is our Wonderful Counselor, so we start by venting all of our anger and resentment to Him. We don't have to dress up our emotions in flowery, spiritual "nice" talk. Nice is over-rated in my book. No, we can let all the raw feelings spill out using whatever language needed. God is not shocked. Once we do that, we acknowledge the depth of God's forgiveness and receive his forgiveness for hating. Yes, hating....don't get all spiritual and deny the hatred. That is the biggest mistake Christians make-they deny the hatred. In the natural, in our flesh, we hate in a heartbeat when those we love hurt or disappoint us. Once we receive God's forgiveness, we may say something like this. "Lord in obedience to you and the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and as an act of my will, I forgive______. Lord, I still have all these yucky feelings, and I can't change them; only you can, but I forgive and leave what I am powerless over to you." Now, somewhere in all of those yucky feelings is demonic activity. The principalities and powers are at work in all of it for Paul tells us in Ephesians that we do not wrestle with flesh and blood, and he also links the "devil's schemes" to unforgiveness. If you want to put the principalities and powers to flight, go one step further in your declaration of forgiveness and say out loud, "Lord, not only do I forgive_______ but based on the blood of Jesus Christ, the death burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ I delcare________ righteous, holy and blameless in your sight." Because, you see, we need to bring not only our sins to the Cross and see them completely forgiven, we need to bring the sins of those who have sinned against us to the very same Cross and see them nailed there.
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