How to Forgive in an Unforgiving World

By John C. Fenn

Often, Christian teachers make forgiveness sound like we have to somehow be okay with the hurt someone inflicted on us while the offender walks away without a care, but that is not what the Bible says. The Bible teaches that forgiveness deals with both the injury inflicted upon us and the responsibility of the other person to apologize and make things right. But what do you do if they don’t do what is right?

The scriptures tell us that you can forgive someone and at the same time ask the Lord to deal with them according to His justice. This study cuts through religious tradition to examine the Word in cultural context and in balance, examining what the Bible actually says about forgiveness, and lays out a path to emotional and spiritual health!

• Language: English
• Publisher: John C. Fenn
• Release date: Feb 29, 2016
• ISBN: 9781311272799

John C. Fenn

John and Barbara Fenn were born in Kokomo, Indiana and grew up just a few miles from each other. They attended the same kindergarten, went to many of the same neighborhood birthday parties growing up, and had mutual friends. Barb even attended John's confirmation in the Episcopal Church when they were twelve years old. They began dating as teenagers and were born again together and baptized with the Holy Spirit at age sixteen. Each attended Indiana University after graduating high school and were then married in 1978. In early 2002 John and Barb founded the Church Without Walls International of Tulsa (CWOWI), a house church network, emphasizing relationship-based Christianity. The seeds of CWOWI were planted in 1992 during a time of prayer. The Lord Jesus appeared to John in a visitation and shared some of what He would be doing in the future. Part of the Lord's plan was an exodus from many of the "para-church" organizations that were raised up after the Charismatic renewal of the 1960s and 70s. This would produce a movement of more "para-church" organizations, home prayer meetings, and also home-based churches. On November 4, 2001, during an evening church meeting in Edmonton, Alberta, Jesus appeared again to John. As both John and the host pastor fell to their knees, Jesus laid hands on John and told him to start a home church network "based on my Word and the things you've learned through the people I've brought across your path this year." The Lord said He wanted it to be called The Church Without Walls International. The next month, CWOWI began meeting in the Fenn home, and is growing and gaining affiliate house churches as relationships develop. Known for teaching with anointing and by revelation and flowing with the gifts of the spirit, his heart's desire is to make known the ways of the Father God. Church Without Walls International (CWOWI) is dedicated to making disciples of Jesus Christ through the establishment of a network of related house churches around the world.

Book preview

How to Forgive

In an Unforgiving World

Copyright 2016 John C. Fenn

Published by Docs2eBooks at Smashwords

Cover Design by Melanie Smith

Unless indicated, quoted Scripture is taken from The King James Bible.

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Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

About the Author

Other Books by Author

Connect with Author

Introduction

A good friend of mine describes the way I teach as similar to a coloring book. First, I sketch out the lines and then towards the end I color it in so you can see the whole picture. That is the way I have written this book. Before we get to how we walk through the emotions of things, I will define sin and explain the differences in God’s eyes of the two types of sin that He mentions in the New Testament and the Old Testament. If we don’t define some of these things right off the bat, then we’re piling good information, revelation and wisdom on top of a bad foundation.

Often, Christian teachers make forgiveness sound like we have to somehow be okay with the hurt someone inflicted on us while the offender walks away without a care, but that is not what the Bible says. The Bible teaches that forgiveness deals with both the injury inflicted upon us and the responsibility of the other person to apologize and make things right. But what do you do if they don’t do what is right?

The scriptures tell us that you can forgive someone and at the same time ask the Lord to deal with them according to His justice. This study cuts through religious tradition to examine the Word in cultural context and in balance, examining what the Bible actually says about forgiveness, and lays out a path to emotional and spiritual health!

Index

CHAPTER ONE

We Live in Fellowship

Religious teaching has taught us so much or given us such an air of condemnation that we think just waking up in the morning is a sin. Sometimes we ask forgiveness for things for which we don’t need forgiveness. Quite recently, someone emailed me to say that their pastor told them that as soon as you get out of bed in the morning you should be asking forgiveness. There is a lot of that kind of mentality out there. Just for being a human, you need to ask forgiveness. But that is not the case.

We are born again people. We are new creations. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says we are born again. We live in fellowship with the Lord. Romans 5:5 says the love of God has been shed abroad in our hearts. Colossians 1:26–27 says that we have this hope in us, Christ in us, the hope of glory. Ephesians 2:6 says that we are seated in heavenly places in Christ. Romans 8:17 says that the Holy Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are now a child of God and therefore our spirit cries out Abba, Father. Ephesians 1:3 says we are blessed in heavenly places with all blessings through Christ. And Galatians 4 talks about how we are no longer servants but are children of God.

We are in position of fellowship. That is how we live. Yes, we may sin and need to ask forgiveness and temporarily step out of fellowship, but we are never out of relationship. The best way I can describe it is like this: I am the oldest of four kids and the biggest. There were times when I hurt, beat up or did whatever to my little brothers. Heaven forbid I touched my sister or hit her, and I never did. I treated my little sister nice, but my brothers were another story.

When that happened my mom would send me to my room. My bedroom was at the end of the hallway on the right side. She would tell me to go sit in my bedroom and think about it. You just go in there and think about this! Here is the point: when I sinned by hitting my brother I had to separate myself from the fellowship, or rather, that action separated me from the ones that I had hurt, my mom and my brother. But I never stopped being the son of my mother. I never broke the relationship of mother and son. I broke fellowship, but I didn’t break relationship. No matter what I did to my brother I was still the son of my mother.

To restore fellowship all I had to do was confess my sin and apologize to my brother, apologize to my mom and I could come out of my room and it was if nothing had ever happened. It is the same with the Father God. We live in fellowship; we are seated in the heavenly places. We have Christ in us. We are not scrambling up to, oh please forgive me. We live in fellowship. We have the Holy Spirit within. He doesn’t leave when we blow it or when we sin. We just step out of fellowship. And the confession of that sin brings us forgiveness; the admission of that sin gets us the forgiveness that was purchased so long ago on the cross.

What is Sin?

Let’s define sin. Just getting up in the morning and getting a cup of coffee is not a sin. Just being human isn’t a sin. You may go for days without sinning! That statement can shake a person up depending on whether they are religious-thinkers or Word-of-God thinkers. You may go days without sinning! That’s right. Think about it: because you live in fellowship, you walk in fellowship with the Lord. You can go days without sinning because you are in fellowship.

And so we need to define what sin is. We have this thinking that oh, surely, I sinned somewhere down the road. You go to work, go to lunch, come back home and walk through the door and then maybe you put in a CD and listen to it. Surely, I sinned somewhere during the day. When? When did you sin during the day? When did you let out a curse word, or commit some big sin? And, how would you know?

We have to challenge our definition of sin. Let me give you an example. In John 2:13–15, Jesus clears out the temple. Now, we know that Jesus lived a sinless life.

Now the Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And he found in the temple those who sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers doing business. When he had made a whip of small cords, he drove them all out