{"id":2614,"date":"2020-10-14T17:30:00","date_gmt":"2020-10-14T23:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=2614"},"modified":"2020-10-09T16:10:20","modified_gmt":"2020-10-09T22:10:20","slug":"releasing-forgiveness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=2614","title":{"rendered":"Releasing Forgiveness"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We\u2019ve been working through&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=2595\">Luke\u2019s version of the Lord\u2019s prayer<\/a>&nbsp;in the Passion Translation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>One day, as Jesus was in prayer, one of his disciples came over to him as he finished and said, \u201cWould you teach us a model prayer that we can pray, just like John did for his disciples?\u201d So Jesus taught them this prayer:&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><em>\u201cOur heavenly Father, may the glory of your name be the center on which our life turns.<\/em><\/li><li><em>May your Holy Spirit come upon us and cleanse us.<\/em><\/li><li><em>Manifest your kingdom on earth.<\/em><\/li><li><em>And give us our needed bread for the coming day.<\/em><\/li><li><strong><em>Forgive our sins as we ourselves release forgiveness to those who have wronged us.<\/em><\/strong><\/li><li><em>And rescue us every time we face tribulations.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0<em>(Luke 11.1 \u2013 4, Passion Translation, emphasis mine)<\/em><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I like<em> &#8220;as we ourselves release forgiveness&#8230;&#8221;<\/em> It reminds me of what I read years ago in <a href=\"https:\/\/smile.amazon.com\/Renewed-Mind-Becoming-Person-Wants\/dp\/0764223917\/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3QH9BPWMGI8HO&amp;dchild=1&amp;keywords=the+renewed+mind+by+larry+christenson&amp;qid=1602280102&amp;sprefix=The+Renewed+%2Caps%2C488&amp;sr=8-1\">The Renewed Mind<\/a> by Larry Christianson. Larry was making the case that texts like Matthew 18.18 imply that our forgiving people has power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. (Matthew 18.18, ESV)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Larry points out that Stephen forgives Saul of Tarsus as he was dying:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, \u201cLord Jesus, receive my spirit.\u201d And falling to his knees he cried out with a loud voice, \u201cLord, do not hold this sin against them.\u201d And when he had said this, he fell asleep. And Saul approved of his execution. (Acts 7.59, 60, 8.1, ESV)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Saul is forgiven by Stephen at the end of Acts 7 and the beginning of Acts 8. You don&#8217;t have to go to seminary to know that Acts 8 comes before Acts 9. And what happens in Acts 9? Saul comes to faith in Jesus on the road to Damascus! <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I get goose bumps every time I tell that story. We need to be people who &#8220;release forgiveness.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Then Peter came up and said to him, \u201cLord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?\u201d Jesus said to him, \u201cI do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.&#8221; (Matthew 18.21, 22, ESV)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We\u2019ve been working through&nbsp;Luke\u2019s version of the Lord\u2019s prayer&nbsp;in the Passion Translation. One day, as Jesus was in prayer, one of his disciples came over to him as he finished and said, \u201cWould you teach us a model prayer that we can pray, just like John did for his disciples?\u201d So Jesus taught them this &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=2614\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Releasing Forgiveness<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8X9bo-Ga","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2614"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2614\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2616,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2614\/revisions\/2616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}