Aphiemi

Today, my assignment is to deliver the final

message of this series, focusing on forgiveness.

And that's going to be my topic for today, forgiveness.

Love and forgiveness are profoundly interconnected.

They are like joined at the hip, if you please.

Cannot separate love from forgiveness. They go

together and they complement each other. And

it's like two rocks that you strike and you get

a spark out of. Have you ever done that? And

that is an interesting thing. But if you get

love and forgiveness and you strike them together

like stones, you will get a spark out of that.

And I pray that maybe you're going to get a spark

today before you leave. Praise God. Amen. Forgiveness

is considered the highest, most practical form

of love, essential for overcoming human imperfections.

Nobody's perfect today, but forgiveness, you

know, I've heard people say, forgive me because

I'm not good at this or I'm not good at that.

And well, praise God. But it's essential for

overcoming imperfections and repairing hurts

and letting go of resentment. So we may have

on the inside. It is a choice that keeps love.

alive. Forgiveness keeps love alive. If we choose

not to forgive, then love dies. You take one

stone away from the other, and it dies. My opening

scripture that I want to take is a well -known,

comes from the well -known prayer, what we all

call the Lord's Prayer, and it's found in Matthew

6 and 12. I'm just going to take one little portion

of this, praise God, and it says this. And forgive

us our debts as we forgive our debtors. The Lord,

he even spoke on a parable about a king that

had a servant that owed him, in today's money,

would mean millions of dollars. The king says,

I'm going to start collecting all my debts. It's

a parable in the book of Matthew. And he says,

I'm going to start collecting all my debts. So

he brought in this servant, and he began to tell

him, man, where's my money? You know, you've

got to pay me my money. And he says, you know,

Lord, I don't have it. I can't pay you right

now, but I can work on it. I've got to work on

this. But it's millions of dollars. What are

you going to do? And the guy says, well, just

give me a chance. Give me a break. And, well,

no. He says, you know what? No. Sell him, sell

his wife, sell his children, and sell everything

he has and make him pay me back. Praise God.

I don't know how you would feel if the bank guy

came to your house and he says, we're going to

sell your children. To pay your debt. Oh, my

God. He's looking for a fight right there, right?

But nonetheless, you know, this king, he put

it on him. But then this man began, he falls

on his knees and he begins to beg him. And then

the man was moved to compassion. And he says,

wow, this guy really touched my heart, man. And

he says, you know what? That's it. Forget it.

I forgive you your debt. I forgive it. And so

the man was happy, and he ran out. And as he's

going out somewhere out in the community, he

runs into somebody that owes him only hundreds

of dollars. And so he says, hey, get over here.

You owe me money. And the guy says, yeah, I don't

have the money. And then he did the same thing.

He begged the man to be merciful, you know, be

compassionate. I'm going to work hard to pay

you back. And the man said, no, bind him and

throw him into prison. Praise God. Well, the

word from the king's servants got back to the

king, and it says, hey, you know. That guy that

you forgave millions of dollars, I see him out

there in the community, man. He wouldn't even

forgive somebody for a few hundred bucks. You're

kidding. Bring him back. So they brought him

back, and then he let him have it. You know,

he threw him in prison. Amen. And, you know,

but the moral of the story is, is that the Lord

was wanting to communicate a message to his disciples

as he was, you know, training them and discipling

them that, you know, as we receive, we need to

give. As we receive, and the Lord's prayer here,

it says, and forgive us our debts as we forgive

our debtors. If we're going to forget our debtors,

we're going to forget those that owe me money

and so forth. It's interesting that the Lord

includes this in his prayer, and so it must have

been very, very important. My thought for today,

and if you could put the slide up there, this

is my thought for today. It's a word. a little

bit hard to pronounce, but it's F -E -A -M -E,

F -E -A -M -E. And this is an interesting word

that is mentioned many, many times in scripture.

And F -E -A -M -E is a common word for forgiveness.

It actually means forgiveness, which means to

let go or to release. That's what this word means,

to let go or to release. And in other cases,

you know, it means other things, but the central...

meaning of it is to let it go, to forgive or

to release. So it is often translated as forgive,

which is a cancellation of sins or debts. It

cancels them. Praise God. How would you like

to get home today if you have a car payment and

you got a letter in the mail that says debt paid?

Here's your pink slip. Wow, you'd get pretty

excited about that. He says, man, you'd get really

excited. And I would, you know. And because to

be, you know, released from a debt is a good

feeling. You know, it's a wonderful feeling to

get that little letter in the mail that's got

your pink slip, you know, or your grant deed

to your property, whatever it is, at whatever

level. Amen. But this word, afaimi, highlights

the active, it's a voluntary and complete nature

of divine forgiveness. It's divine forgiveness

where God sends away the punishment and the guilt

of sins. In other words, that is the most powerful,

the greatest thing that we cannot ever pay for

is our sins. And here he forgives us. There are

two very powerful conditions. That are, as people,

whether you know God or you don't know God, whatever

your situation is, there are two very powerful

conditions that we as human beings, as people,

must give attention to. And it's these. Forgiveness

and unforgiveness. Forgiveness versus unforgiveness.

We're going to consider unforgiveness first because

I think it's a condition that many, and I'm going

to explain to you how that works and how that

we can become released from that. Someone has

described unforgiveness as the accumulation of

unexpressed anger. It's an accumulation. It keeps

accumulating it. And if somebody owes you money,

you know, every time you see them, you say, man,

I hope he pays me. You know, like, you owe me,

you know, 20 bucks. When are you going to pay

me? You know, and so far I remember a brother

that got converted. He was actually related to

me. And he got converted, but he was a drug dealer

back in the day. And, you know, he always, you

know, was making deals, I guess, with drug dealers.

druggies or whatever. And after he got converted,

he was out in the streets, you know, happy, you

know, bouncing around. And this was down there

in Bakersfield, and you probably don't know where

that is. It's in the desert in California somewhere.

But that's my hometown. I was born and raised

there. But anyway, he was walking around in the

community, and then he noticed that there was

people that were hiding from him. When they would

see him, they would hide, you know. hide behind

a car or go into the store or something so he

wouldn't see them. And then it realizes, oh,

man, those people owe me money from back then,

you know, the old me. So he started looking for

them, and they were scared to death, you know,

because this guy was a very demanding person.

And he says, no, no, no, no. Don't be afraid.

I'm a new creation. I'm a new man. You owe me

nothing. Wow, can you imagine that druggie? I

don't owe you nothing. No. It's not to say that

the drug is good. No. But you don't owe me a

dime. Man, he went around making all kinds of

friends. He was forgiving everybody in town.

Everybody owed him money. Well, praise God. It

just happens. But I imagine that that individual.

Oh, my God. He probably quit drugs. I don't know

at that time. I don't know. But the point is

that it was a great relief. And that's what happens

when there's death. People hide. And that is

the reason why even Eve and Adam were hiding

from the Lord when they sinned, right? Praise

the Lord, somebody. It's amazing how that people

that, oh, they're always hiding. They're in the

bushes or somewhere. You saw them in the corner

of their eye and they hide. Oh, come on. Unless

you're the one that's hiding. I don't know. It

flips. You can go the other way. But when we

choose to hold on to past pains, past hurts,

Past disappointments or past betrayals, we relinquish

control of our own future. When you hold on to

those hurts, well, he did me wrong, or she did

me wrong, or they did me wrong, or he should

have never fired me, and whatever the situation

is in your life, if you hold on to that, you

are postponing or you're delaying. your beautiful

future. But the sooner you do something about

it, and I don't mean go chase the guy down or

whatever, but the minute you release that in

your spirit, the sooner your future lays ahead

of you and you're going to have a wonderful life.

Somebody say praise the Lord. Whatever sin has

been committed against you, the choice to not

forgive is itself an even more harmful and serious

sin. Praise the God. It will affect you if you

choose not to forgive somebody. You know, you

might say, well, I'm going to hold them to it.

Well, you know, you could do whatever you want.

But if you know there's no way they can pay you

back, there's just no way, and they forgive,

and you feel led to forgive them, you have released

yourself. Amen. I said, you have released yourself.

Failing to forgive can often bring about problems,

situations in our own lives far worse than the

original offense. If somebody offended you. and

did something, said something about you. They

posted something on social media that, you know,

it offended you or whatever. The longer, you

know, if you don't forgive and forget it and

let it go, it's going to be worse. Your life

will become, it'll accumulate because sin has

a way of compounding itself. Praise the Lord.

It says, offenses begin to compound themselves.

I wish my bank would compound like that. But

it doesn't, you know, but offenses compound themselves.

You know what I'm saying? There's a high interest

you pay, praise God, when you hang on to it and

you don't release it. forgiveness is a very real

issue with many people. I have seen people, believe

me, you know, there's an old story about the

McCoys and somebody else. I don't remember who

the other people were, but they couldn't stand

each other. They were ranchers, you know. For

all their lives, at the end of the day, they

didn't even know why they hated each other. But

man, they were against each other, you know.

You keep your cattle on that side of the fence.

You know, and okay, you know. And they were at

odds for a whole lot. How would it have been

if they would have just had, you know, barbecues

together, you know. We're going to kill my cow.

We're coming over, you know, to have a barbecue.

Praise God, you know, that's awesome. But it's

more difficult. You know, sometimes we even have

a difficulty remembering who offended us, you

know. And I know that guy. I know I'm not supposed

to get along with them, but let me think about

it for a bit. What did they do to me, you know?

And, I mean, come on. You know, it's so long

ago, praise God, and people hang on to stuff.

How many of us, amen, would want to admit here

today that there may be some measure, some small

or great of resentment or a pain of some sort

of betrayal within us? Somebody did you wrong.

Somebody that was your friend decided not to

be your friend no more. For some reason, they

betrayed you. They left you standing alone. Many

have learned through life to cope with that and

live with unforgiveness. Many mask their hurt

with laughter and bury it. with busyness they

stay busy they just their life is just constantly

busy there just doesn't seem to be any you know

uh uh any uh peaceful time you're just you know

the way that you you you check that as you stay

busy busy busy busy but when you start to slow

down you start realizing that hey those issues

are not they haven't gone away When we consciously

and spiritually know that we are guilty of an

unforgiving heart, we are opening the door to

bitterness that is a silent killer of true inner

freedom. You might look free on the outside,

but the reality is that... Bitterness begins

to, because it just eats on that. It eats because

unforgiving heart is the right environment for

bitterness to begin to grow. And many times I

use the analogy of that. I don't know if you've

ever dealt with remodeling homes or whatever,

but especially in bathrooms and kitchens where

there's water, and if there's water damage on

wood, it's called fungus. Okay? Dry rot, they

call it. And I don't know why they came up with

that, but that's what they call it because it's

dry, but it's rot. It's sitting there. But at

the perfect environment, when there's enough

humidity in the place, the organisms of that

rot becomes alive. It becomes alive. It wakes

up. If you want to wake up dry rot, you prepare,

you get the right humidity environment, and it's

like, hmm, hmm, what's that? It's environment,

it's moisture, and then it comes alive. That's

what dry rot does. And I compare that to the

same thing as unforgiveness. When we have unforgiveness

in our heart, it might appear to be dead. It

might seem like you've dealt with it in a way

to you pushed it in a corner somewhere in your

heart. But in the right environment, it comes

alive. Hello, somebody. It will come alive. And

then now you've got to deal with it all over

again. Oh, my God, like it just happened to you.

I want to talk a little bit about living wounded.

If you can put that up here, living wounded.

Okay, now listen. There are people. that are

living with wounds, that are not healed, and

wounded people tend to wound other people. Praise

the Lord, somebody. It's the truth. Everyone

at one point or another will experience the hurt

or betrayal or offenses from others. It is a

fact of life. Pain is unavoidable. You will be

hurt, wronged, and offended by others. And I'm

going to get back to that right now, living wounded.

But I want to share this slide with this scripture.

The Lord says, in the world you will have trouble.

You're going to have it. You're not going to

escape from it. How many had a little trouble

this week? Oh, man, you had a perfect week. How

many had trouble? Raise up your hand. I had some

trouble this week. Somebody ran a red light and

almost hit me. You know, road rage and whatnot.

The outcome of our lives is not determined by

what happens to us, but how we deal with its

troubles. We got to learn this principle. Without

forgiveness, life is governed by an endless cycle

of resentment and retaliation. I'm going to get

back. One of these days, they're going to come

and ask me again. Really? You know, it's a retaliation.

It's like you're just waiting for them, you know,

on your porch of your heart, you know, just waiting

for them to approach you, you know. But without

forgiveness. Without forgiveness, life is governed

by an endless cycle. Amen. We will suffer painful

tests of betrayal and offenses. How we deal with

them will determine our spiritual health. And

effectiveness and God's purpose in our lives.

Praise God. There's a lot of people. I mean,

I don't mean to say anything about our praise

singers. There's people on the platform. There's

even people preaching. There's people everywhere

that seem to be functioning okay. They're doing

good, you know. Praise God, you know. High fives

everywhere. Everybody's good. And hallelujah,

we speak in tongues, you know. And wow, praise

the Lord. But in the right environment, it surfaces.

I can't stand that brother. He owes me 10 bucks,

man. And I seen him driving a brand new car.

He won't even give me 10 bucks and he's driving

a Tesla, man. What's going on? Cadillac, you

know, Rolls Royce, whatever. How we deal with

them will determine our own spiritual health.

Jesus Christ himself taught us by example how

we, as his ambassadors, will walk the same. Path

and hardships. Listen to what the scripture says

in John 13, 21. And this is considering Judah's

betrayal. This is about Judah right here. It

says, when Jesus had said these things, talking

to the disciples, he was troubled in his spirit

and testified and said, Moses, surely I say to

you, one of you will betray me. And he was talking

to the disciples. The point is this, that I want

to draw from that. He was troubled in his spirit.

Why? You know, how many of us can identify with

some sort of betrayal somewhere in our lives

or some sort of an offense that has affected

us in some sort of way? And we identify with

the Lord Jesus when he said he was troubled in

his spirit. Why? Why did it trouble the Lord

in his spirit? It's because it was an inner thing.

It's an inner thing. This is one of the strongest

expressions used by the Lord Jesus Christ. The

distress penetrated through his body. It penetrated

through his soul, and it reached to the innermost

part of him, which was his spirit. And, you know,

we can be hurt in our bodies. We can be hurt

in our soul. But when it gets into our spirit

and it troubles us, a troubled spirit is most

difficult to diagnose and to heal. Praise the

Lord, somebody. The Greek word for troubled means

stirred to anger and agitated. Troubled means

stirred to anger or agitated. Anger and agitation

are normal humanistic responses to betrayal and

to offenses. It reminds us about our frailties

as humans. We're only humans, somebody said,

and how our lives are vulnerable to spiritual

and physical attacks that can penetrate our guard

or protection and inflict pain and discomfort

in our lives. It is extremely important for us

as people and people of God that we... We not

ignore the reality of what is happening in the

depths of our being. Don't ignore it. Your pain,

your hurt, and disappointment take an extreme

amount of, it takes an extreme amount of energy

to conceal or camouflage and to put on your game

face and thinking that everything is all right,

when in fact you're hurting on the inside. You

are in pain. Your spirit is troubled. When someone

betrays or offends us, don't Compound the pain

by betraying ourselves. Now, the worst thing

that you can do is betray your own self. Somebody

betrayed you, that's on them. But when you betray

yourself, that's on you. And you know how you

betray yourself? It's when you do nothing about

it. And you learn to cope and live with it. Praise

the Lord. By giving in to anger, revenge, hate,

amen, and so much more that can affect our spirits.

Although the sting of betrayal or offense hurts

tremendously, many of us have been betrayed or

offended, if not all. We must take the Lord's

examples, amen, such of his wounds by responding

with love, compassion, and forgiveness. Oftentimes

it has very little to do with those that betray

or offend us, yet everything to do with those

that are offended. Us. Us. You cannot fix other

people, but you can fix yourself. You know what

I'm saying? You know, this is just a simple analogy,

but let's just say that somebody... you know,

pushed you off your bike and you fell and you

hurt yourself. And you're there, you know, and

you're injured. Would you tell that person, you

need to go to the hospital, hurry up, go. He

says, excuse me, I'm not the one to hurt, you're

hurt. He says, yeah, but you pushed me. Yeah,

but the one that pushed you doesn't need hospital

care. You do. When you're offended, the offender

doesn't need. Yeah, God will deal with him somehow,

but you need a hospital. You need attention.

In other words, it's not your job to be protecting

all the people in the earth that are offending

everybody. It's your job to protect your heart.

My heart. You are in control of yourself. You

are in control of who you are. No doubt Jesus

suffered extreme, eternal pain, and we know the

story of how he suffered so much, such as the

stripes, the smithing, the bruising, the thorny

crown, and ultimately the cross. Yet his greatest

test of punishment came from betrayal. Betrayal.

Because you're not going to hear him say, you're

not going to hear him say, my spirit is troubled.

He didn't say that on the cross. But he said

it to the disciples when somebody, and we know

that it was Judas, was going to, because all

the disciples said, Lord, is it I? Is it me?

Let me tell you a story about an apple trees.

There is a principle about. fruit -bearing apple

trees that has to do with wounding. Sometimes

a tree will really take off and begin to grow

tall and will look very beautiful, just like

maybe you and I in our lives, Christian or otherwise,

in the Lord. But they have very little fruit,

and we've heard that in biblical teachings. The

branches, they just, they grow. Then what happens

is the grower, the owner of the apple orchard,

will come with a sledgehammer, and he will launch

a swing and give a hard blow to the lower part

of the tree. You might think, well, what's wrong

with this farmer, man? I mean, he's growing trees.

Doesn't he want fruit? Well, what happens is

the tree, listen, the tree doesn't have a mind

like we do. But it's God's creation, right? How

can an apple tree remember to give apples and

not oranges? Oh, that's right, I'm an apple tree.

I've got to give apples. No, it's God's making.

God made it that way. They know they got to give

apples. All right, well, when he gets wounded,

what does a tree do? The tree suddenly turns

all its attention to heal itself. I got to heal

myself. And when the tree begins to put his attention

on the healing, he begins to create sap. It begins

to create like a honey within itself, and it

covers its wound. For us, we might think that

it's bleeding, but what it's doing, it's attending

to its wound because it needs to heal. In the

efforts of healing the tree itself, the medicine

that it produces for its own healing, it becomes

positive effect on the tree, amen, to the point

that the tree begins to give fruit. Think about

it. The tree begins to give fruit. My God. I

don't think the pastor is going to go around

with a sledgehammer next week seeing if he can

get you to bear fruit. No, he's not going to

do that. But look what happened to the tree.

My God. The grower hit it. Pow! The bottom, the

trunk. And, you know, I mean, I don't know. I

can't tell you if the tree. has feelings, but

I know one thing, the tree knows that it was

wounded and the tree will begin to nurture that

wound with the sap that comes out. It generates,

it brings the sap down to heal the wound. And

when it's doing that, it begins to produce fruit.

Wow. Isn't that something we would like to see?

And then you wonder, well, you know, I don't

know, God, you know, they wounded me, and I don't

know if I can serve you anymore. Oh, my God.

Oh, ye of little faith. In spiritual sense, God,

the master pruner, will wound us to heal us,

and the results will be more fruit. Somebody

say praise the Lord. Why don't you turn around

and tell your neighbor, let God take a sledgehammer

to you. No. Holy ghost, no. Listen, there's a

very powerful quote by Oswald Chambers. If you

can put that up. It says this. He who God will

use greatly, he will wound deeply. And that is

just the truth. If you want to be used of God,

man, you're open game. Because you're going to

get wounded deeply along the way. And I'm going

to tell you, it's not easy getting somebody,

you know, could say, well, you know, he had all

the right, you know, people on his side and everything.

That's why he is where he is. Really? I don't

think so. Because the way up the ladder to up.

It's wounds. One wound at a time. And you're

wounded, wounded, wounded, wounded. That's your

stepping. That's your staircase. Matthew 18,

18 says, Surely I say to you, whatever you bind

on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever

you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

You might say, what has that got to do with it?

Well, many have used this passage to enable them

to cast out devils and cast out gross sicknesses.

Such like. But this passage actually of scripture

was given with the purpose of dealing with offenses.

Dealing with offenses. God has given us authority

over our offenses. He has given us power to bind

and to loose. Praise the Lord somebody. Because

it had to do with conflict. It had to do with

disciplines. And that's where this comes from.

You know, we have been given the most powerful

attribute of God, which is forgiveness. Somebody

say forgiveness. Matthew 9 and 5 says, For which

is easier to say, your sins are forgiven you,

or to say, arise and walk? Well, that was a question.

you know, posed when the Lord was healing a man

and they were saying, well, he's doing it on

the Sabbath and what's going on? Well, the point

is this, that it says, what is it easier to say?

Your sins are forgiven or to say to get up and

walk? Well, somebody might say, well, to get

up and walk is much harder. No, it isn't. In

reality, it is the flip of that. It's harder

to forgive, praise the Lord, because forgiving

comes with a price. It comes with the wound.

You hear what I'm saying? Healing the sick is

an outward realization of God's power, but forgiveness

heals from the inside. The greatest power God

has given us is to bind and lose through forgiveness.

You hear what I'm saying? You want to bind, you

want to lose. I'm going to tell you, what is

the most powerful way? To keep something from

offending you time and time and time again. Jesus

was asked, how many times should we forgive?

And they said, seven times? Well, that's a lot,

but let's throw the number a little high. You

know, seven times, who's going to forgive seven

times? You know, the same person, same thing.

You know, but the Lord says, oh no. In some versions

it says 70 times 7, and in others it says 70

plus 7. In either case, it's a lot of forgiving.

It's a lot of forgiving. And therefore, you know,

the Lord is saying, hey, it's powerful. You want

power? You want to experience power? If you ever

want to experience the greatest revival that

you ever had, forgive somebody. You say, how's

that going to make me? It's going to make you

speak in tongues, man. It's going to make you

leap for joy, jump. I feel good, man. That was

before James Brown said it. Oh, yeah, that's

over your head. I feel good, he said. Well, I

feel better. I should have wrote a song right

after that. You feel good. I feel better. Why?

Because I'm free. When we release. Somebody,

we're actually releasing ourselves. That's revival.

No preacher can come here and preach a message

to you so you can experience revival. Amen. And

no matter how good he preaches and sings and

all of that, if you don't have forgiveness in

your heart, you're going to be dead. But if you

forgive, you're free. You've got revival. God

can move through you. you. You can feel the presence

of God. You can feel liberated. But it's all

within yourself. You don't need a preacher to

do that. You can just get up one morning and

say, I forgive. And you can have the best day

you've ever had. Why? Because you learned to

forgive. And when you do it, man, you release

yourself. You're free from within. Wow. Praise

God. You can run around your neighborhood, you

know, praising God. Amen. Because there's a power

when we release and we set free and loose others.

Amen. And you loose ourselves from betrayals

and offenses. We can ask the keyboard. You can

come up. Amen. Thank you. Forgiveness is to release

and let go. That's what it is. To relinquish

and release those we've been victimized by is

powerful. Forgive us our debts as we forgive

our debtors. Forgiveness doesn't make the other

person right. It doesn't mean that you're, yeah,

but if I forgive them, you know, don't worry

about that. Don't worry about if you forgive

them. It's not saying they're right, who's right,

and who's wrong. You forgive. That's all you

do. That's your job. That's my assignment. It

doesn't make the other person or the situation

right, but it makes you free. That's what it

does. It makes you free. How many want to be

free? By forgiving, by forgiving, I release my

own right to get even. I don't need to get even.

Many people say, well, one of these days you

just watch. Well, really, you're looking for

revenge. You're looking to get even with somebody.

To get even doesn't release you. It doesn't release

you at all. But the thing of the thing, this

is that if we forgive all, what comes against

us, God will work it out. Don't you worry about

that offender or whatever. They betrayed you,

they'll betray you again. Well, there's a whole

lot we can say there about trust and all of that.

That's another topic. But forgiveness is not

an occasional act. It is a permanent attitude

that we need to keep within ourselves. It's a

permanent attitude just to forgive. Because when

we forgive, we identify with the spirit of Christ.

That he's a forgiving God. Praise God. What if

I were to tell you, if you don't forgive, he

won't forgive you. That's heavy, man. But it's

biblical truth. Forgiveness does not mean excusing

somebody's behavior or ignoring the boundaries

that we set. It is the act of releasing the need

for retribution. You don't need to get even.

You don't. When love is present, forgiveness

becomes easier. to extend. Could you stand with

me? I don't know if you are like me, but there's

offenses all the time. Every day, maybe tomorrow,

sometime this week, you're going to be betrayed

one way or another, offended by something. But

the sooner you let it go, Just turn it off and

say, I forgive that person. Lord, I forget that

statement. I forgive this or that. You're free.

You are free. And that's the way we need to live

because there was an old saying. I heard this

many, many years ago. In fact, a bishop told

me this many years ago because I. I went to him

with my own personal situation that I was going

through. And he says, listen, God deals with

those that offend us. He deals with that. Leave

that to him. You deal with your heart. And so

I did. And everything came out good on my part.

But then something he told me. Unfortunately,

I saw it happen. He says, you know, it's a medical

proven science that when people are unforgiving

and they hold on to it and they captivate it

in their bodies, they suffer. With certain ailments.

One of the areas that it gets attacks is the

back, the body, the back. And it's a proven science,

you know, but we're not here to give a science

lesson, but it's interesting that he told me

that. And not that I wanted to avenge or I didn't

leave for joy or get all excited when that person

that offended me. You know, was having back problems

and then very serious back problems. And it just

reminded me, God healed them. I began to pray

for them. Healed their body. Healed. I forgave

them already. Healed them. And, but it's true.

It will affect you physically. If you hold on,

you're going to be affected physically. You want

to live a long time? Forgive. Let it go. Let

God take control of that.