Self-Acceptance Series
Healing of Memories: Forgiveness of Sin

God's View:
Gal. 2:20
; 2 Cor. 3:16-18 -At the moment of the new birth, God's Spirit descends into the human spirit, a place where the Holy Spirit lives and from which He radiates up through the soul as well as the physical body. Thusly, believers are to Practice His Presence within which opens up channels for healing of man's soul and the basis for further becoming in Christ. The Spirit is the inner depth of man's being, the higher aspect of his personality. The soul expresses man's own special and distinctive individuality. The spirit is man's nonmaterial matter looking Godward; the soul is that same nature of man looking earthward and touching things of sense.

Hope:
Ps. 32:5
; Lu. 11:2-4 ; Isa. 61:1-4 -When we forgive others and receive God's forgiveness for our sins, God's Spirit can now radiate through this barrier of unforgiveness and proceed to heal our soul. Forgiveness of sin impacts the soul in its totality-emotional, feeling, intuitive, imaginative faculties. God's healing Presence wonderfully heals man's deepest hurts and memories.

Rom. 8:11 ; l Cor. 2:9-11 -Jesus is the living fountain rising up into the wells of our personality. Dwelling upon His Presence begins the process of healings :of guilt, experiences, of rejection, diseased or unnatural feelings, of desires and thoughts that are repressed--all the shameful past. The Holy Spirit is God's finger on sore memories. Each incident that comes to light, we are to forgive, and then we will receive from God illumination and healing, and the subsequent steps we are to take to maintain healing.

Col. 2:5 ; 1 Cor. 5:3-5 -Time and space are creatures, they are created. Jesus , the infinite One, is outside of time and space. All times are present to Him where nothing has yet passed away and nothing is still to come. All our times, together with all that we are, are eternally present to God. . Thus, through prayer we overcome the obstacles of time and space. God, eternally present, He is present to all our times-past, present and future. As we learn to collaborate with Him in prayer, He will heal all. Time does not erase our sins. Only by our repentance and His blood is sin and guilt lifted from past and present.

Change:
Matt. 6:14-15 ; 18:7
; John 16:33 -Failure to forgive another is a most formidable barrier to wholeness. Always, at the bottom of everything that is amiss, we will find pride which needs to be confessed. Our failure to forgive the merely petty things of life, the everyday irritations and transgressions that gets to us leads us easily to despise those who offend us in these ways.

l Pet. 3:8-11 ; 2 Cor. 5:15-17 -We are to see others as Christ sees them. Ask the Lord to enable you to see the other person through His eyes. We will see the other's strengths and be reminded of our own weaknesses, and Christ's patience with the petty within ourselves. When tempted to react, see your irritation, anger, resentment come up and flow unto Christ on the Cross Who, in our stead, takes and carries all our sin and darkness. Then ask Christ to fill all these spaces where this pain, anger, resentment have been with His healing love and light. To do the contrary, to hate another is to eventually hate yourself.

l Pet. 2:23 ; Rom. 6:3-6 ; Dan. 9:4-19 ; Neh. 1:5-11 ; Matt. 18:18 -Being grievously wounded by someone, we are inclined to react in kind and place ourselves in gross sin as well. We must confess these sins before God that have deeply pierced the soul. With the confession , we extend forgiveness to the sinning one, then the power of that sin to continue to wound and to shape the sufferer is broken. We do not forgive evil, Satan, demons and evil principalities, but we forgive"persons" in the clutches of that evil.


HOMEWORK
Memory/Meditation/Prayer :
l Pet. 3:9-11 .
Devotions :
BSAF on Matt. 5:44 ; Eph. 4:25-32 .
Put-off and put-on:
List in specific terms incidents and the people who offended and wounded you. See that person objectively controlled and dominated by sin. Ask God to forgive you for reacting in kind to the offense, then ask God for grace to forgive the offender because he does not really know what he is doing. Ask the Lord for grace to separate your identity from the offender so that you can accept yourself. Now free to be identified with Christ. God's grace will flow in to work forgiveness through you to the offender.

Forms and Worksheets
BSAF: Bible Study & Application Form
Think and Do
Love Is
VOSWS: Victory Over Sin Worksheet
Dying to Self
Problem Solving
PSW: Problem/Solution Worksheet
Freedom from Anxiety
Contingency Plan
Change Is a Two-Factored Process
Scheduling Worksheet

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