This message changed my life.

Feelings and forgiveness have nothing to do with each other.
Forgiveness is an act of the will.
If we respond in unforgiveness, a root of bitterness is going to take place and out of that is going to spring anger, resentment, bitterness and hostility
You may keep it submerged for awhile but I'm here to tell you it's either going to trickle out little by little or one of these days it's going to blow like a volcano and it's going to spill out on everybody that knows you and everybody that lives around you.

If you have been deeply hurt in the past and you are still struggling with the ability to forgive the person who wronged you, God can set you free. He can liberate you from the awesome sense of the weight of an unforgiving spirit.

At no place in the Bible does it say we can justify an unforgiving spirit.

Every aspect of life is affected by an unforgiving spirit.

Maybe there's something that happened weeks or months or even a few years ago and you've buried it down there and you've forgotten it (you think.) That unforgiving spirit has been eating away at you and destroying your emotional base.

The mature response is choosing to forgive the moment we've been wronged.

If you unwisely choose not to be forgiving to those who wrong you, you have two other choices: you can blast or you can bury. You can blast back those who have wronged you and tell them what you really think or you can bury it deep down inside. If you choose the unwise reaction, choose the wiser of the two unwise positions. Blast it--get it out of your system. Don't let it rot inside of you.

The consequences of an unforgiving spirit--it saturates your attitudes, actions, emotions, relationships, etc.

You cannot say Jesus Christ is Lord of your life and have an unforgiving spirit. You can't say that He is living through you if you're living with an unforgiving spirit towards someone.

Let's look at Joseph. Remember his hurts. Rejected by his father. His brothers hated him and despised him and were going to kill him. Betrayed and lied about. Sent to prison. Forgotten. His life was a life of hurt and despair and pain and suffering. Every time he was hurt, he was deeply hurt. He struggled with what they did to him. He struggled because he was misunderstood and vilely treated. But he knew how to deal with an unforgiving spirit--He allowed God to heal him quickly. That's why people were drawn to him and that's why people loved him. That's why God honored him. Joseph responded the right way.

The steps you go through in dealing with an unforgiving spirit:
1. Wronged--you have been wronged.
2. Difficulty--you're unable to deal with it when you've been wronged because of who did it or or what they did.
3. Detour--you just want to forget it!
4. Dig a hole--emotionally, you just want to bury the whole idea. You don't want to think about it.
5. Deny--you deny that the pain is there.
6. Defeat--you're defeated by this unforgiveness.
7. Defile--unforgiveness defiles your relationships, conversations, physical body, etc.
8. Discouraged--you feel things aren't going to work out. On the inside there is no contentment, joy or happiness. Why can't you love others? Why can't you sense others' love?
9. Desperation--you get desperate because you don't know how to deal with it (destruction.)
10. Discover--ask someone to help you find out what's wrong. You'll discover that root that you've denied and repressed for all this time.
11. Deal--deal with it. Open your heart to someone and lay your life bare.
12. Deliverance--you get delivered from the very spirit of unforgiveness that was destroying your life!!

God, I don't feel it, but I choose by an act of will to forgive them for wronging me. I'm releasing them for what they have done to me.The moment you say, "I CHOOSE to forgive!" the healing process finally begins.

A God who is all good does not work in the life of His children with an evil purpose.If God has allowed you to be seriously, deeply, weepingly hurt over the years, a GOOD GOD with a GOOD purpose who is going to work out a GOOD cause and a GOOD end result allowed that in your life!!

Get your eyes off of your offender and get them on your God!