Forgiveness Vs. Freedom

When you forgive someone of something, does that automatically mean you’re free? And then how do you know when you’re truly free? When you’re headstrong, you can convince yourself of just about anything. If you tell yourself enough times that you’re free, you will eventually believe it, until someone mentions a name or a time that brings back a certain moment. If your face changes up, and you start to feel angry on the inside, chances are you’re not quite free. For the average person, it’s hard enough to just forgive someone of something they’ve done, much less be free of it. The Bible says “Now the Lord is the spirit and where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Corinthians 3:17). And then the Bible also tells us “For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you” (Matthew 6:14) Forgiveness and freedom go hand in hand with each other. You can forgive someone without being free, but in order to be free of something, you have to forgive. It has to be given to God and you have to come to terms with forgiving that person. The two things together are easier said than done. They can take years to do, sometime a lifetime, but God doesn’t want us lugging around old baggage. He wants us to be free of it. If that weren’t the case, he’d just keep making us stronger to take on more baggage throughout our life. God gives us the strength to handle whatever trials we may go through in life, but His intent isn’t for us to keep it and let it run our lives, but to learn from it, let it go, and hopefully teach someone else how to let it go too. Thank God for freedom and forgiveness.