In a simple but hard ten-minute span of time, we witnessed 17 years of torment drop off of Brad. Brad reached out to us, after someone on a social media site, had recommended our book Forgiving Forward to him. For 17 years Brad had been seeking help from any person, any source, any place—including social media, that would help him get free of the torment that gripped him day and night. “It’s the first thing I think about when I wake up in the morning and the last thing I think about when I go to bed at night.”

Many people ask, “How can I forgive them when I know that it’s going to keep happening?” That is not an insignificant question. We all have those “repeat offenders” in our lives that wound us on a regular basis. How long do we “put up with it?” Isn’t there a limit to how often I should forgive?

What moved me that day was the reminder that the fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel’s veins is true for everyone, not just me and you. “Lose all THEIR guilty stains.” Could it be that if we, as the redeemed, celebrated the power of the Gospel to cleanse sin in other people’s lives as much as we do our own, the world would change?

We met Marike Veldman in Jerusalem in March 2017! Her story is a powerful one of choosing to believe God's promises and forgive in the midst of a crisis!

I love the fact that the Bible is alive, that you can know a passage well and still continually learn deep truths from it. That happened to me recently with Isaiah 55. I was reading Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers by Dane Ortlund. In this intriguing book, the author helps us consider more deeply what Scripture reveals to us about Jesus’ heart, who really is at His core the Son of God, based on what Jesus said about Himself in Matthew 11:28-30.

Brad and Molly came to us in crisis. Three weeks earlier Molly had discovered Brad’s pornography addiction and his multiple affairs, including Molly’s best friend, Brad’s best friend’s wife and prostitutes. She was shocked. A couple of days after the initial confrontation, Brad picked up his Bible. As he began to read something inside him broke. For two hours he tearfully read the Bible and, for the first time, understood the grace of God and the forgiveness provided for him through the blood of the cross. He was dramatically transformed. Heart cleansed. Desires changed.

The blood of Jesus covers all sins including the ones committed against me and true forgiveness is applying the blood of Jesus as payment in full for every wound I ever have or will suffer. Oftentimes we get confused because we categorize offenses. It's a business offense. It's a personal offense. It's a family offense. It's a neighborhood offense. So we've got clusters of categories of offenses, but really offenses are offenses!

The good news of Easter is this: Jesus died when His blood flowed out of Him on the Cross. When we put our faith in Him, His blood pours out over us, washing away our sin. As His blood flows through us, we are empowered to live His life. There truly is transforming power in the blood of Jesus!

For the next hour I coached Tom through the Forgiveness Protocols wound by wound, person by person. The tears flowed as the chains of unforgiveness were broken and fell away. When we finished the last “Is the Holy Spirit bringing anything else to you now?” question, and he answered “no,” I asked him how he felt. He replied, “I feel so light I could fly! I feel like thousands of pounds of old chains are gone and I can breathe!”

Well, my responsibility is to own my sin, basically to recognize the wounding and the pain that I've inflicted upon someone and own it and change my mind about it. Repentance. When you talk about reconciliation, you have to have both forgiveness and repentance. Repentance does not mean to change your behavior. It means to change your mind, which will ultimately change your behavior. Repentance is metanoia: to change your mind. So my responsibility is to recognize and confess what I did was wrong, confess it to God, and then go see what I can do to make it right. There's a passage where Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew 5 says, "If therefore, you are offering your gift on the altar and you remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother, then come and offer your gift.”

There are certain wounds that are more painful to endure and process than others. Adultery is the deepest form of betrayal within a marriage and leaves devastating wounds in the heart of the victimized spouse that makes forgiveness seem impossible. Conventional wisdom says that even if forgiveness is possible for an unfaithful spouse, recovering from it will take years. But conventional wisdom rarely considers the Cross.

Recently a couple came to us as a last resort. The wife had lost all hope and they were clearly heading for a divorce. As my wife and I worked with these two hurting people, we begin to recognize the telltale signs of unforgiveness. We helped them to discover the deep wounds from their childhood, their past relationships and from each other that were tormenting them both. As we walked them individually through the protocols of forgiveness, we witnessed two unbelievable transformations. They were set free! They were arm in arm as they walked to their car. Their marriage was restored through the power of forgiveness.

The insufficiency of the animal sacrifices gives way to the sufficiency of the Lamb of God who was slain from the foundation of the world. As we reflect on these High Holy Days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, let’s celebrate that the ultimate Day Of Atonement was accomplished over 2000 years ago on an old rugged Cross where the spotless Lamb of God was slain for the sin of the world. It never has to be repeated!

Jesus Christ himself identifies with that because when he forgave it cost him greatly. And so, no, it's not OK. But, forgiveness does say that it was already paid for. They don't owe me anything because Jesus already paid for their sins against me.

There! I said it! Unforgiveness is a sin. It really is. “I know I know it doesn't feel like a sin. I mean, come on. They hurt me. It wasn't my fault. So it's my choice whether I forgive or not. I have a right to be upset because they owe me.” All of that may be true, but unforgiveness is still a sin. And it's a sin that keeps us in torment.

Forgiveness is a transaction. It's receiving the blood of Jesus as payment in full for every wound I ever have or ever will suffer.

What if I told you that forgiveness isn't a process, it's a decision? And what if I told you that you don't need a lot of time to make that decision? And what if I told you, the concept that's out there that, "OK, it's going to take time to deal with this wound and process it and get through it"...  What if I told you that's exactly the opposite thing that you ought to do? And what if I told you that the purest evidence of the Christ-Life in us is when we choose to forgive instantaneously?

He recognized that the revelation of Jesus is the key to overcoming problems and that there is nothing the nearness of Jesus does not cure. This article is foundational in understanding why Forgiving Forward uses the coaching model rather than the traditional counseling model.

Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times..