If you’re having trouble understanding the importance of your forgiveness today, I want you to picture a wife who is married to a horrible, ungodly husband. This husband has wounded her physically and emotionally, he’s been unfaithful to her, and after all these years of his bad behavior, she wants nothing to do with him. Many of us might think that she is perfectly right to be angry and to hold those wounds against her husband; after all, all of us have had someone we couldn’t forgive, someone who hurt us so bad that we wanted nothing to do with them, and that’s why I want to make sure you understand the power that your forgiveness — and your unforgiveness — holds. 

In John 20:23, Jesus tells us very clearly what happens when we have an unforgiving attitude:

“If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

This verse tells us that if that wife refuses to forgive her husband, carrying those wounds into her prayers, the husband’s sins against her will be retained, meaning they’ll stay stuck instead of being cast far away from him. Think of it like a prison cell where the husband sits with all of his horrible, poisonous behaviors. When the wife refuses to forgive, she is slamming the door to that cell and locking it up tight, so the husband and all his nasty behaviors and words are just sitting in there and getting worse and worse. 

Do you see how important your forgiveness is? We may want to keep that other person in that spiritual prison, but Jesus says that we have the power to release them, to open up that cell so that they can come out and all the nasty stuff can be cleaned away. That is the power of our forgiveness, friends, and it is a huge responsibility!

Now, this does not mean that we are in any way someone else’s savior. The husband in our example could escape the prison himself if he made the decision to repent before God and his wife. However, the wife’s unforgiveness could be the very thing that hinders the Holy Spirit from working in his heart to bring him to that repentance! The wife might pray every day for her husband to be changed and to come to God, not realizing that she is hindering that process herself by holding onto the sins that he has committed against her.

If that wife doesn’t send away her husband’s sins, she retains them, and as long as she retains them, those sins remain on the husband, and he is held to his old pattern of behavior. She can pray for 14 more years, but until she releases him, she locks him in that prison and holds him captive to his sin. On the other hand, the moment she chooses to forgive, she opens the door for the Holy Ghost to clean out that cell and work out God’s will in her husband’s life.

Something that we don’t always realise is that our unforgiveness doesn’t just keep our offenders captive to their sins. When we refuse to forgive, we bind ourselves as well. You might say, “But they’re the ones who hurt me or insulted me. Why should I be punished?” Well, friend, that’s what unforgiveness does. It’s not that we’re being punished, but that unforgiveness is not from God, so it will hurt us if we try to keep it around.

Think of it like a string connected to the spiritual prison we’ve locked that other person in. When we hold unforgiveness, we hold on to that string, and if you’ve ever tried to move around with a string attached to you, you know that it gets very tricky. When you try to move this way or that, you just trip and get tangled up, and when you try to walk away, you find that that string just pulls you back to that person and that pain and all the poisonous stuff you tried to lock in that spiritual prison.

I know that in my life, any time I didn’t forgive someone, it has opened the door to sickness in my body, anxiety in my mind, and all these horrible attacks of the devil. Unforgiveness is so awful, friend, because the only person who wins with unforgiveness is the devil.

Thank God that isn’t the only possible ending to the story! You see, just like your decision not to forgive can lock that other person in a cell and bind you to the pain they caused you, your forgiveness can do the opposite. Jesus said that it works both ways, so if you forgive that person, if you release them and throw those sins far away from them, you will open up the opportunity for the Holy Spirit to enter into their hearts and change them eternally. That’s why forgiveness is one of the most important spiritual gifts we can give people.

Stephen’s Quick Forgiveness

We find a great example of this principle in Acts 7:54-60.

In this account, we see that Stephen, a leader in the early church, was very close to death. He had been a bold witness for Jesus, and the Jewish leaders were furious about that, so now they were all gathered around him, ready to stone him to death. According to what we know about stonings, the leaders would have been pelting him with large rocks — not just little pebbles but rocks that would crush his skull and kill him. It was horrible, and Stephen was just seconds away from seeing Jesus face to face, and that’s when he did something incredible:

And they stoned Stephen as he was calling on God and saying, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” Then he knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not charge them with this sin.” And when he had said this, he fell asleep.

—Acts 7:59-60

Stephen was just seconds from eternity, and the last thing he did with those few precious, painful seconds was ask, “Lord, do not charge them with this sin.” That is powerful.

Now, I want you to notice who it was that Stephen forgave. Who was in that audience? Acts 8:1 tells us:

“Now Saul was consenting to his death.”

There stood the future apostle Paul, just a young man at the time, fully approving of and even enjoying the spectacle of Stephen’s death, and in those last few seconds of his life, Stephen forgave him!

Now, Stephen didn’t know the future apostle Paul was standing in the crowd. He didn’t know the plans God had for him or how far his ministry would reach, but Stephen didn’t want to die with unforgiveness in his heart. Huge stones were being hurled at him. He was bleeding, experiencing great pain, and sensing that his life would slip from him in mere moments. Yet, in the midst of all this, he found the strength to say, “God, forgive them.” Because Stephen was willing to forgive, the man who would become the apostle Paul was released from his sin, and God was able to work in that young man’s life to do amazing things.

I believe that this moment has so much eternal significance, friend. Of course, God could have used anyone. He could have found someone else to spread the gospel and inspire and guide the Early Church. He could have found other ways to touch Saul’s heart, but because Stephen used his final moments to forgive, God didn’t have to do all that. In that one act, Stephen released the future apostle Paul to fulfill his own destiny in God!

A Heavy Responsibility

Most Christians don’t realize the kind of power they have in the spiritual realm — power that can operate both positively and negatively. Our attitudes affect people, and an attitude of unforgiveness is especially powerful. When we don’t forgive, we hold people in the place where they are. They are hindered from changing and going further in God because we are keeping them tied to their sin, and we can’t grow and heal either because we are keeping ourselves tied to that person and the pain they caused us.

We need to forgive as quickly as Stephen did. When our offenders are throwing stones at us, we must immediately free them and not hold it to their charge. Let’s cry out to God to make us more like Stephen. Let’s develop an urgency in our spirits to release people at the precise moment of offense. Let it never be said that we are responsible for holding a single person captive in the prison of past offenses!

If God is calling you to release someone in your life today, don’t try to change that person, but choose to forgive them so that you can see them walk in freedom one day.

It is so vitally important that you forgive quickly and refuse to hold offense. Just think — What if Stephen had held on to the sin of his offenders? In a few seconds, it would have been too late. 

God has given you a tremendous responsibility with this power to remit or retain sin. If you are struggling with unforgiveness, consider this: What call is on the person’s life whom you are refusing to forgive? How many lives will they touch for God’s kingdom if you release them?

You may not know the answer, but neither did Stephen know about Saul’s calling; he just forgave.