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When we realize that only God can forgive our sins; and that His<br />
forgiveness is freely available for us, then we come to terms<br />
with how privileged we are. Like I was then, some people pray<br />
and go to church a lot, but they have baggage in their hearts. My<br />
heart was filled with hatred and bitterness towards the people<br />
who had hurt my family and me. But I still prayed and felt I was<br />
close to God. However, I did not know that in order to be a true<br />
believer, I needed to change and give up some things so that I<br />
could grow into the new creature Jesus Christ had made me and<br />
that I would experience salvation in its fullness. Even though<br />
people considered me outwardly virtuous and I appeared to be<br />
a nice person, I discovered that on the inside, I was a sinner full<br />
of wickedness. I then started to seek a remedy to my state of<br />
heart because I did not want to live a life of fear and lies<br />
disguised as Christianity.<br />
Many of us are called Christians and yet our souls are sick. Lack<br />
of forgiveness was a serious problem for me because I had many<br />
wounds in my heart; I felt seriously hurt by my people and my<br />
in-laws. I tried to find the role I had played in what I had gone<br />
through, or what I had done wrong, but I could not find any. This<br />
feeling that I had been unfairly treated made it difficult for me<br />
to forgive those who wronged me. 1 John 4:20-21 says, “If a man<br />
says, I love God, and hates his brother, he is a liar: for he that<br />
loves not his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God<br />
whom he has not seen? And this commandment have we from<br />
him, that he who loves God loves his brother also.” Contrary to<br />
what this scripture says, I thought that since I prayed and went<br />
to church, I did not need people because I had experienced<br />
many disappointments through them. I did not want to live with<br />
anybody. I could not trust those who approached me for<br />
friendship. I did not believe that anybody could love me, except<br />
my husband. I tried to let things go but did a very poor job of it.<br />
The devil always reminded me of the hard times I had gone<br />
through, the people who had hurt me and all the suffering I had<br />
endured. Plainly put, I was a new creation in Christ who lived in<br />
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