Jesus did not die in vain. He did not die just so that we could be called Christians and have some religious experience. He died for us so that we could have life—life in the Spirit and life in the natural.
Life in the natural can be very difficult at times because life dishes up surprises. Things happen that make life challenging. But when we know Christ, those things do not have to affect us the way they once did, because He is there to be our strength, our Comforter, and our Helper. Jesus said we would receive power after the Holy Ghost has come upon us. That power is God's ability, God's efficiency, and God's might. It pertains to my life as an individual as well as the ministry God has called me to do.
God does not want us to be subject to all the negative things that life dishes up. There will always be challenges. There will never be a time when everything just runs smoothly. Today things may be great, and tomorrow there may be a challenge. I am not telling anybody to go looking for the next challenge, but when it comes, if we react under the anointing and the presence and power of God, it is going to help us tremendously.
There are two words that are literally life-changing for the believer. If we can learn to live with these two words in mind, they will help us tremendously: forgive and forget.
Micah 7:18–19 says, “Who is God like You, Who forgives iniquity?” God is a forgiving God. When you received Jesus as your Lord and Savior and asked Him to forgive you, He forgave you. The Scripture goes on to say that He will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. I often refer to that as the sea of God's forgetfulness. He casts that sin into the sea of forgetfulness to remember it no more.
God is not sitting there with a checklist of all the bad things you have ever done in your life, reminding you about how bad you have been. God is not caught by surprise when you and I act like human beings. We are going to make mistakes. We are going to do things that are just plain fleshly. The flesh rears up and does what flesh does best, and that is usually the wrong thing. But God is a forgiving God.
Psalm 103 tells us that as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. Think about that. As far as the east is from the west. When Jesus shed His blood on the cross, we were washed whiter than snow. The shed blood of Jesus enables us to be washed whiter than snow so that when God looks upon us, He does not see us merely as sinful human beings. He sees the redeemed, blood-washed, blood-bought saints whose sins have been forgiven. We are clothed with the righteousness of Christ.
That is the attitude in which we have to walk every day, recognizing the forgiveness God has extended toward us and recognizing His mercy. God is a God of great mercy and great love, and He is more ready to bless us than we are actually ready to receive.
Likewise, we have to walk in that forgiveness. Forgive because we have been forgiven, and forget because God remembers our sins no more. We forgive those who have done us wrong, and we forget it by faith in Jesus.
Now, that is not always easy to do because we have a brain with an incredible ability to remember things. Our memories extend far back into our lives. You can sit and think about when you were a child and remember little things that happened, both good and bad.
I remember when I was about four or five years old, playing outside on the farm, and an aircraft flew very low over us. This was back around 1953. It was a big old prop plane, and it made an incredible noise flying perhaps one or two thousand feet above me. As a little kid, I heard the rumbling of those engines and ran into the house in terror. My folks had to explain to me that it was an aircraft. I remember that very distinctly because it had an impact on me as a little child.
Your brain stores things like that as memories. You have many good memories, and you can also have many bad memories. Sometimes there can be a series of bad things that happened that stand out in your memory, and those are the things God wants to help us overcome.
Peter had a conversation with Jesus in Matthew 18:21. Peter came to Jesus and said, “Lord, how many times may my brother sin against me and I forgive him?” In other words, how many times can somebody do something wrong to me and I have to forgive him and let it go? Peter suggested maybe seven times.
Jesus answered and said, not seven times, but seventy times seven. That is 490 times. Why that figure? I do not know, but that is a lot of forgiving.
Then I began to realize that our memories are triggered throughout our lives. You can hear a sound or hear music played, and suddenly it brings back a memory. Every now and again, we will hear a song that was played around the time of our honeymoon, and we will say, “There's our honeymoon song.” Thank God that is a good memory!
But sometimes what comes back is not a good memory. Maybe somebody did something to you that caused you a lot of grief or anxiety. Maybe it became a source of great contention in your life. Suddenly that memory crops up, and you feel that anger or resentment coming back as though it happened yesterday.
That is why those two words—forgive and forget—have to become part of what we do. When that resentment comes back, immediately say, “Lord, I don't want to have this resentment. I thought I was free of it, but evidently the memory is still there. Lord, I thank You in Jesus' name that You help me overcome this.”
Then immediately forgive that person again. If you have to do it ten times, forgive them again. They may never even know that they hurt you. A lot of people do things without realizing how deeply their words or actions affected someone else. They may just carry on with life as normal.
Your forgiving them is more for you than it is for them, because I want that freedom in Christ. I do not want to be bound by the memories of the past. I do not want to be bound by anxiety, anger, hurt, and resentment over something somebody did to me years ago. I want to be free of that stuff.
The minute those feelings arise, give them to the Lord. Say, “Lord, I thank You that You forgave me, and I forgive them in the name of Jesus. I thank You for the joy of the Lord that is my strength, and I thank You for Your peace.”
Memories of hurt, betrayal, desertion, trauma, and danger can have emotions attached to them—anger, resentment, fear, discouragement, loneliness, and so many other things that human beings experience. These are the very things Jesus died for on the cross. The Bible says the chastisement of our peace was upon Him. He was chastised so that we could have peace.
The peace of God is incredible. Human peace is fleeting. It changes when circumstances change. But Jesus gives us a peace that does not come from the world. It is the peace of God. It is heavenly peace.
Romans 12:2 says, “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” In the Amplified, it speaks about the renewing of the mind through its new ideas and new attitudes. New ideas replace the old ones, and new attitudes take the place of the old attitudes.
As we press into God, rely upon the Lord, lean upon Him, and commit these things to Him, He begins to strengthen us and change us. Our thinking becomes different.
God begins to build in us a string of great memories. We often sit and talk about where we were thirty years ago and how the Lord has taken us through the journey of revival. We remember how we saw God touch not only our own family but also those He had us minister to. Those are incredible memories.
Those memories can make the failures of the past seem like something distant, almost as though they happened to somebody else. Your old life becomes something that seems so far removed from who you are now. The Bible says that when you receive Christ, old things are passed away and all things become new.
God helps you forgive and forget so that those old memories become almost stacked away in the archives, and He begins filling your memory with the good things that have happened as a believer—the great times together in the Lord and the great memories of being in the presence of God.
Not every negative thing that happens in our lives is something we have to spend hours binding and rebuking. I am speaking from experience because I did that for many years. I spent a lot of time rebuking and binding, and many times nothing changed. My life was the same. Our marriage still had the same problems. I did a lot of sweating and tears, and I did not see the change I was looking for.
Then the Lord touched us in those early days of revival. God began to touch us as a family and change each one of us. We began to live in a different realm with the joy of the Lord, the peace of God, and the love of God. Those things began changing many of the hindrances in our lives.
Today, we do not spend our days rebuking the devil and binding everything. When the Holy Spirit leads us to take authority over something, absolutely, we do it with the unction and authority God has put in us. But we do not have to do warfare every day because God has provided the Holy Spirit, who lives in me. Greater is He who is in me than he that is in the world.
I look to the Holy Spirit in me to bring change, strength, healing, hope, joy, peace, love, and whatever else I need in order to stay free and walk free in Christ.
This freedom is a process. It is something we step into. It is not something you do once and never have to do again. We do not eat one meal and then wait until next week to eat again. We eat because our bodies continually need nourishment. The same principle applies spiritually.
When anger arises because a memory has been triggered by something somebody said or did years ago, we apply these truths again.
There are people who have been hurt in church situations and carry that hurt around with them. But you are never going to find a perfect church where you will never be offended by something. Why? Because churches are filled with people. They are human beings, and none of them are perfect. Yet God puts His precious treasure on the inside of imperfect vessels and anoints them. Hopefully, they yield to the Spirit of God, who corrects them, changes them, heals them, and sets them free.
God is calling us to walk in the Spirit.
He says, “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” If God says it is possible, then it is possible.
I do not have the same issues today that I had when I was a young believer. I had memories from my past, from my teenage years and childhood, and God had to root those things out of me. Slowly but surely, my mindset changed.
God wants to put new ideas in our minds. He wants to put a fresh vision on the inside of us and build attitudes that are positive and based upon the Word of God. “Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee.”
I hide the Word of God on the inside of me, and it builds me up. My spirit becomes strong in the Lord. Then, whenever I need it, the Holy Spirit brings that Word to my remembrance. I immediately yield to that Word and let the Word work in me.
That is what changes us. That is what gives us new ideas and new attitudes.
Over time, positive memories and attitudes associated with love, peace, joy, and goodness replace those negative things. Then you can look back over your life and say, “Wow, look what the Lord has done. Look where He has brought me from.”
I used to be that person who was emotionally affected by every little thing that happened. But I am no longer that way. I have changed. I react differently. Things that used to overcome me, things that used to make me fall apart, things that made me want to give up, do not have the same power over me anymore because God has built an inner strength in me.
God builds in you the memory of how He caused you to triumph. When something negative happens again, the Holy Spirit can remind you of how God brought you triumphantly through the last situation. God is building positive things and good things in you.
So how do we overcome? How do we live free from those things that used to assail us? The Word of God gives us the answer.
Colossians 3:15 says, “Let the peace of God rule in your heart.” Let the peace of God become the deciding factor. The Amplified speaks about letting the peace of God be the umpire of your heart.
I have to walk in that peace every day. If I do not have peace, I need to do the things that bring peace. Sometimes I just have to get alone with God, get somewhere where I can shut everything else out, put on some anointed worship, and focus on the Lord. It might be ten, fifteen, or twenty minutes, but I focus on Him until the peace of God absolutely rules in my heart and floods my heart.
The Bible speaks about “the peace of God that passes understanding.” Your understanding may want to go in the opposite direction, but when you let the peace of God rule, it rises up and overshadows the thought, memory, or emotion that was trying to lead you astray.
I cannot let turmoil usurp authority over my life. I cannot allow turmoil, anxiety, fear, and all those things to run rampant in my life. I have to rein them in and bring them to a stop with the help of God, by the power of the Spirit of God and by the peace of God that passes understanding.
First Peter 4:8 says, “Have fervent love one for another for love will cover a multitude of sin.”
What a concept. The love of God covers a multitude of sin.
There will be times when somebody comes to you with a bad attitude and snaps at you. There are two ways you can react. The flesh can say, “I'm not going to take this. I'm going to give them a piece of my mind.” But that may be the last piece you have, so don't do that!
Or I can decide that I do not want to get into a confrontation and end up with a bad attitude myself. I can let the love of God that is shed abroad in my heart by the Holy Ghost come forth, and I can respond with the love of God.
When you do that, you can see something amazing happen. It is difficult for someone to maintain a bad attitude when they are confronted with the love of Jesus flowing from your heart.
We ought to be kindhearted and tenderhearted toward one another. We ought to allow the tenderness of heaven to work through us. The flesh says, “I'm not going to let that person get away with that.” But if people are not teachable, responding in the flesh may simply escalate into a confrontation that is not worth having.
I saw a news report on YouTube about an elderly gentleman who was shopping and wearing a mask. A lady was standing very close behind him, and he politely asked her if she could give him some space. She moved aside, but her boyfriend became angry that this man had asked his girlfriend to distance herself.
According to the report, he waited outside, followed the older gentleman toward his car, and punched him in the chest, knocking him to the ground. The man had recently been recovering from open-heart surgery. The police eventually found the attacker, and he was arrested.
Think about that. In one moment, somebody allowed the flesh and anger to get the better of him, and his life was turned upside down.
We have to guard against that. It is not worth reacting or overreacting in the natural. I would rather react with the love of God. I would rather allow the Holy Spirit to rise up in me and show me how He wants me to respond.
Fervent love helps us look at the children of God differently. There are people who may irritate you just by nature. They rub you the wrong way. But when you walk in the love of God, it does not really matter because love covers a multitude of sin.
Instead of just seeing somebody's bad attitude, maybe I can see that person as somebody who has a problem that I can help them with. Maybe when I simply love them, God will give me a word of knowledge or a word of wisdom because of the compassion in my heart. Maybe God will speak through my life into that person's life and help them overcome whatever triggered that bad attitude.
Then we become the hand of Jesus extended, helping others to be set free.
Nehemiah 8:10 says, “The joy of the Lord is your strength.”
Nehemiah told the people not to be full of sorrow. He told them to go their way, eat the fat and drink the sweet. I see the fat and oil as symbolic of the anointing. We need to live in the anointing and receive the anointing because the anointing destroys the yoke of bondage and lifts the burden from off your shoulder.
Get filled with the anointing so those things cannot come upon you and control you anymore. God wants to set us free from human fear, anxiety, and all those things that assail mankind.
We can talk about the gifts of the Spirit, how God wants to bless your ministry, prophetic words, and all those wonderful things. But these things I am talking about are foundational. The body of Christ needs to learn them because we cannot become the true body of Christ walking in the freedom that is in Christ until we learn to overcome these things.
Forgive and forget. Walk in the peace of God. Walk in the love of God. Let the joy of the Lord be your strength.
First Thessalonians 5:18 says, “Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus.”
Notice that it does not say give thanks for all circumstances. It says give thanks in all circumstances.
Maybe you are going through financial pressure. If you continually focus on the circumstances, they can pull you down. But when you begin giving thanks in the midst of them, the joy of the Lord rises up on the inside of you. The love of God is shed abroad in your heart by the Holy Ghost. Fear leaves. Anxiety leaves. Joy becomes your strength. The peace of God begins to flood your heart, and suddenly you are looking at the problem completely differently.
God is never caught by surprise by human frailty. He is never caught by surprise by the mistakes you and I make as human beings. He will cause us to triumph in Christ Jesus.
So I can say, “Lord, thank You that You will cause me to triumph through this thing. I don't know how I'm going to get through this mess. I don't know where the finances are going to come from for what I need, but I'm going to trust You because You are my Provider. You are El Shaddai, the God who is more than enough. You are Jehovah Jireh, the God who provides all of my needs. I'm going to trust You, and I'm going to give You thanks.”
Give Him thanks on purpose, and do it with a rejoicing heart.
Do not approach God continually rehearsing how terrible everything is. Rejoice and say, “Father, I thank You. Lord, I thank You, Jesus, that in the midst of the storm You cause me to triumph. I thank You that whatever I'm going through right now, You are going to bring me through.”
Jesus said that in this world we will have tribulation and trial, but we are not to fear because He has overcome the world.
When we walk in the love of God, the joy of the Lord, the peace of God, and the anointing of the Holy Spirit, these things will not overcome us. We will become overcomers.
You cannot be full of joy and anger at the same time. It is impossible. When you get filled with the joy of the Lord, that anger does not matter anymore. The joy of Jesus is so good and so wonderful that everything else begins to seem unimportant.
Let the Lord remove that anger by filling you with His awesome, incredible joy.
You cannot be full of joy and anger at the same time, and you cannot be full of peace and fear at the same time. We have witnessed the Lord touch people who came into meetings battling severe depression and even suicidal thoughts. We saw people come into those meetings and get filled with joy night after night, and we witnessed tremendous changes in their lives. When joy comes, depression goes. When peace comes, anxiety goes.
The fruit of the Spirit dispels the works of the flesh.
The Bible says, “Walk in the Spirit and you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh.” Walk in the Spirit.
Go back over these things and make some notes. Write down the things you are dealing with every day. Write down those emotional issues because they may be peculiar to you. You may not experience what somebody else experiences.
Then approach the Holy Spirit and say, “Lord, these are the things I recognize that I need help with. Show me how to overcome this. Show me how to overcome this fear that keeps cropping up. Lord, give me the solution.”
When you ask God to help you, He will help you. The Holy Spirit is the One called alongside to help. He is the Comforter, the Helper, the Standby, the Intercessor, the Advocate, and the Strengthener.
And He is on the inside of you.
He will help you overcome. He wants to touch you, change you, heal you, and set you free so that you can truly enjoy freedom in Christ.
Source: Sat. 07-04-2026 Pt.1 “Freedom in Christ” BC #1284 — Revival Times
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