Hi! Hope you are having a great day today and also that last week’s focus on walking with Jesus as a true disciple has brought new growth into your life.
Forgiveness Week
Today week 2 of our 7-week discipleship sprint begins! This week is about fixing our heart and cleaning out the hurts. In live we accumulate wounds. Some are suffered in our childhood. Others come through a failed romantic love. Probably the deepest and most abiding happen in our family. It could be from your extended family, or your mom and dad, your brothers, or even your children or grandchildren. There are betrayals in our career usually because money and position are involved. Then, there are those horrible hurts that occur in church. Usually we don't see these coming and they really hit us hard. Any of these that stick to us rob us of joy and interfere with the forgiveness Jesus wants to bring to us.
So this week, we're gonna deal with all that stuff and get rid of it, OK?
Here are your Prayer Prompts: Use one each day as your devotional time with the Lord.
They are designed to unearth hidden hurts so you can follow the process of:
1. Listing the person who did it
2. Writing exactly what they did
3. Describing how it affected you
4. Declaring them as released from all debt to you
You may think that you don’t need to do this because you did it once already, but let’s follow the program anyway and ask the Holy Spirit to do a deep healing this week in you. Long term marriage generally had lots of irritation under the skin as you repeat in your mind some well-worn criticisms of your partner. This is the week to let it all go and start living with more freedom.
Prayer Prompts
### Day 1: Wounds Received in Your Family
**Scripture Reference:** Zechariah 13:6-7
> "And they shall say to him, 'What are these wounds between your arms?' Then he will answer, 'Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.'"
**Additional Reading:** Genesis 44-45 (Joseph's revelation of himself to his betraying brothers. You can tell he has long ago forgiven them and sees the sovereign purpose of God even in their treachery against him.)
**Reflection:** Welcome to Forgiveness Week! Today we begin our journey into forgiveness by thinking about the wounds we have all suffered in our family and intimate friendship circle. Because family is supposed to be the safe place in our life, and the one place we would never expect to receive hurt, these wounds go the deepest. They also come the earliest in our life, and since we are still in formation, the impact of these wounds is generally felt for the rest of our lives.
**Forgiveness Protocol:** This week we will begin a long time of soul cleansing. This will entail something of a ceremony of forgiveness. Forgiveness is the cancelling of a debt. In order to do this we must name the debtor, state exactly what they did to us, and explain how their actions affected us. That's the debt, our of our heart and now recorded officially on paper. The only remaining step is to go before the Lord and say, "I release you" to each debtor. They owe us nothing from this point on. We are free to move on in life with the matter at rest in the lap of the great Judge of the earth.
Take a blank sheet of paper and make four columns for the following headings: Name, What they Did, How it Affected Me, I Forgive them. Day by day we will carefully examine the path of our lives to unearth buried hurts we have received and release these person and the wound they caused us.
**Prompts:**
1. Looking back at your early childhood, can you identify a hurt or rejection that still affects how you see yourself or trust others today?
2. In your teen years or young adulthood, what wounds—whether from parents, siblings or extended relatives—still carry weight in your heart?
3. Were you assaulted by a family member or close friend?
4. Were you hurt by a system of favoritism within your family?
5. Were you betrayed by anyone in your inner circle?
6. Were you sexually wounded by someone you trusted?
7. Were you physically or verbally abused by family members?
8. Did someone in your family introduce you to dark or harmful things?
Ask the Lord to help you surface wounds received in your family as a child, young person or even now. We praying for you this week to go through the deepest cleansing your heart has ever known.
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### Day 2: Forgiving Wounds Received in Romantic Relationships
**Scripture Reference:** 1 Peter 4:8
> "Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins."
**Reflection:** Romantic relationships, while often sources of joy and connection, can also lead to deep emotional, psychological, and spiritual wounds due to their intimate nature. Below is a detailed exploration of specific ways a person can be wounded in romantic relationships. As you survey your relational past, think on ways you might have been wounded and are just trying to ignore it instead of facing it and forgiving it.
**Prompts:**
1. How does Peter's teaching about love covering "a multitude of sins" guide your approach to forgiving romantic wounds?
2. Have you experienced emotional neglect from a romantic partner—when they consistently ignored or minimized your feelings?
3. Have you suffered verbal or emotional abuse, including harsh words, relentless criticism, controlling behavior, or gaslighting?
4. Have you experienced abandonment or rejection—being left by a partner through breakup, divorce, sudden withdrawal, or being "ghosted"?
5. Were there broken promises or unmet expectations that led to disappointment and disillusionment?
6. Have you experienced manipulation or control where a partner used guilt, coercion, or power dynamics to control your decisions or behavior?
7. Have you been wounded by a partner's lack of forgiveness or their holding grudges against you?
8. Have you experienced sexual disrespect, coercion, or disregard for your boundaries?
9. Have you been betrayed through infidelity, emotional affairs, or other violations of trust?
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### Day 3: Forgiving Wounds Suffered in the Context of Our Work Life
**Scripture Reference:** Colossians 3:23-24
> "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving."
**Reflection:** Our workplace relationships are opportunities to demonstrate Christ's love and character. When these relationships are damaged by wounds we've received, it affects not only our work environment but also our witness. Approaching workplace forgiveness with the mindset that we are ultimately serving Christ transforms how we handle professional hurts.
**Prompts:**
1. Have you been betrayed by colleagues or superiors-—undermined, deceived, or had credit taken for your work?
2. Have you experienced unfair treatment or discrimination based on gender, race, age, faith, or other factors?
3. Have you faced workplace bullying or harassment—verbal abuse, intimidation, public humiliation, or aggressive criticism?
4. Have you suffered job loss or unfair termination without clear explanation?
5. Have employers or business partners broken professional promises regarding raises, promotions, equity shares, or project support?
6. Have you received excessive criticism or had your contributions consistently ignored or undervalued?
7. Have you experienced workplace competition and sabotage—colleagues undermining you to gain advantage?
8. Have you been overburdened with excessive workloads or unrealistic deadlines without adequate support?
9. Have you faced pressure to compromise your Christian values or experienced judgment for your faith in a secular workplace?
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### Day 4: Forgiving Wrongs Suffered in the Church
**Scripture Reference:** Psalm 55:12-14
> "If an enemy were insulting me, I could endure it; if a foe were rising against me, I could hide. But it is you, a man like myself, my companion, my close friend, who has done this. We took sweet counsel together and walked among the throng at the house of God."
**Reflection:** Today we focus on forgiving wounds suffered in the church. This is such a sensitive matter for all of us who follow Jesus, especially for those of us who have dedicated a significant amount of our passion and energy to ministry in any form. In a church setting, we can experience a range of emotional, psychological, and spiritual wounds due to the deeply personal and trusting nature of these environments. These wounds can be particularly painful because we believe churches and religious figures should be safe sources of spiritual care, and we let our guard completely down. These hurts go deep.
**Prompts:**
1. How does David's pain about being wounded by a close friend and companion in the house of God resonate with your church experiences?
2. Have you experienced public embarrassment, judgment, or condemnation from church members or leaders for personal choices, struggles, or sins?
3. Have you suffered spiritual abuse or manipulation where religious representatives misused their authority in order to control or coerce you?
4. Have you been excluded, shunned, ignored, or rejected from the church community?
5. Have you been betrayed by trusted leaders who violated your trust or used craftiness to disadvantage you?
6. Have you witnessed or been hurt by hypocrisy or double standards where church members acted contrary to Jesus' teachings?
7. Have you been caught up in unresolved conflicts, church splits, or factionalism within a congregation?
8. Have you faced legalism and rigid expectations that went beyond biblical principles and were enforced without grace?
9. Have you experienced neglect or lack of support from the church during personal crises when you needed care?
10. Have you been hurt by moral or ethical failures of religious representatives, such as financial misconduct or sexual scandals?
11. Have you been shamed or dismissed for questioning doctrine or practices, often framed as a lack of faith?
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### Day 5: Forgiving Yourself
**Scripture Reference:** Luke 11:4
> "Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. And lead us not into temptation."
**Reflection:** The Lord's prayer now applies to you. Today our focus is on the Lord's prayer in Luke 11 verse 4. Because you have spent this whole week forgiving others, you have the privilege to come before the Father and ask Him to forgive you for everything you have done in your whole life against Him and against your own progress. Jesus was pretty clear that without giving forgiveness we cannot receive forgiveness, so now we have a great opportunity to have all the burdens of our heart lifted off of us. What a great week!
**Prompts:**
1. How does Jesus' teaching that we must forgive others in order to receive forgiveness challenge you as you approach self-forgiveness?
2. What sins, mistakes, or failures from your past do you need to bring before God for forgiveness?
3. Are there ways you have hurt others that you need to confess and receive God's forgiveness for?
4. What patterns of sin or destructive behavior do you need to repent of and receive God's grace to change?
5. How have you hindered your own spiritual progress or growth? What do you need forgiveness for in this area?
6. Are there ways you have failed to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength that need His forgiveness?
7. What guilt, shame, or self-condemnation do you need to release as you receive God's complete forgiveness?
8. Will you now extend to yourself the same grace and forgiveness that you'd offer others?
